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Best Ship owner of All Time

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Olivier Levasseur (1688 or 1690 – 7 July 1730), was a pirate, nicknamed La Buse or La Bouche (The Buzzard) in his early days, called thus because of the speed and ruthlessness with which he always attacked his enemies.
Born at Calais during the Nine Years' War (1688–97) to a wealthy bourgeois family, he became a naval officer after receiving an excellent education. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), he procured a Letter of Marque from king Louis XIV and became a privateer for the French crown. When the war ended he was ordered to return home with his ship, but instead joined the Benjamin Hornigold pirate company in 1716. Levasseur proved himself a good leader and shipmate, although he already had a scar across one eye limiting his sight.
After a year of successful looting, the Hornigold party split, with Levasseur deciding to try his luck on the West African coast. In 1719 he operated together with Howell Davis and Thomas Cocklyn for a time. In 1720, they attacked the slaver port of Ouidah, on the coast of Benin, reducing the local fortress to ruins. Later that year, he was shipwrecked in the Mozambique Channel and stranded on the island of Anjouan, one of the

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is a non-profit, marine conservation organization based in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington in the United States. The group uses direct action tactics to protect marine life. The organization was founded in 1977 under the name Earth Force Society by Paul Watson, a former member of Greenpeace, after a dispute with that organization over what Watson saw as its lack of more aggressive intervention. The group has a strong focus on public relations to spread their message via the media. In 2008, Animal Planet began filming the weekly series Whale Wars based on the group's encounters with the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean, a development which brought the group much publicity.
Sea Shepherd currently operates the vessels MY Steve Irwin, the MY Bob Barker,the MY Sam Simon (donated by the founder of The Simpsons for the 2012 campaign) and the MV Brigitte Bardot, and most of the group's recent activities take place in international waters. Operations have included scuttling and disabling whaling vessels at harbor, intervening in Canadian and Namibian seal hunts, shining laser light into the eyes of whalers, throwing

The Adelaide Steamship Company was formed by a group of South Australian businessmen in 1875. Their aim was to control the transport of goods between Adelaide and Melbourne and profit from the need for an efficient and comfortable passenger service. For the first 100 years of its life, the main activities of the company were conventional shipping operations on the Australian coast, primary products, consumer cargoes and extensive passenger services.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the company diversified into the airline operations, towage, shipbuilding, and the shipping of salt, coal and sugar. Adelaide Airways was formed in 1935, and purchased West Australian Airways before merging with Holyman's Airways to form Australian National Airways (ANA) in 1936. ANA was sold to Reg Ansett in 1957.
In 1964, the Interstate fleet merged with McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co, and the partnership developed the world's first purpose built container ships. However, in 1973, the company ceased its shipbuilding operations, and in 1977, in its 103rd year of operation, the company sold its shipping related businesses, and ceased its connection with ship owning and operating. The company did, however, retain its

Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster GCVO DSO (familiarly "Bendor") (19 March 1879 – 19 July 1953) was the son of Victor Alexander Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor and Lady Sibell Mary Lumley, the daughter of the 9th Earl of Scarborough. He was a grandson of Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster. He was a cousin of King George V.
From his childhood and during his adult life he was known within family circles as "Bendor", which was also the name of the racehorse Bend Or owned by his grandfather the first Duke, which won the Epsom Derby in 1880, the year following his grandson's birth. The name is a jovial reference to the ancient lost and much lamented former armorials of the family Azure, a bend or, which were awarded to the Scrope family in the famous case of 1389 heard before the Court of Chivalry, known as Scrope v Grosvenor. His wife Loelia wrote in her memoirs: "Of course everybody, even his parents and sisters, would normally have addressed the baby as "Belgrave" so they may have thought that any nickname was preferable. At all events it stuck, and my husband's friends never called him anything but Bendor or Benny".
Like many of his social class whose lives were

Olivier van Noort (1558 – 22 February 1627) was the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world.
Olivier van Noort was born in 1558 in Utrecht. He left Rotterdam on 2 July 1598 with four ships and a plan to attack Spanish possessions in the Pacific and to trade with China and the Spice Islands. His ships were poorly equipped, especially in the way of armament and the crews were unruly.
Nonetheless, Van Noort sailed through the Magellan Strait, and captured a number of ships (Spanish and otherwise) in the Pacific. He lost two ships on the way due to a storm, one was lost in an engagement with the Spanish near the Manila Bay in the Philippines. The Spanish lost their flagship, the galleon San Diego, the wreck of which was found in 1992 and yielded a treasure in porcelain and gold pieces.
Van Noort returned to Rotterdam via the Dutch East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope on 26 August 1601 with his last ship, the Mauritius, and 45 of originally 248 men. The venture barely broke even, but was the inspiration for more such expeditions. The united Dutch East India Company was formed a few months later.

Lancelot Blackburne (sometimes Blackburn or Blackborne or Blackbourn[e]), (10 December 1658 – 23 March 1743) was an English clergyman, who became Archbishop of York, and – in popular belief – a pirate.
He was described by Horace Walpole, in his Memories, as "…Blackbourn, the jolly old Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a buccaneer, and was a clergyman; but he retained nothing of his first profession, except his seraglio."
He was born in London, a younger brother of Richard Blackburne. He attended Westminster School, and in 1676 entered Christ Church, Oxford. He graduated in 1680, was ordained, and travelled to the West Indies. In January 1684 he was granted an MA by the university; at this time, he is known to have been in Nevis. A popular story recounts that he spent these years sailing with buccaneers, either as their chaplain or as a pirate himself; there is little evidence either way, although a record of 1681 notes that he was paid £20 by Charles II for "secret services".
He returned to England during 1684, marrying Catherine Talbot (the elder sister of William Talbot) in September, and shortly thereafter took up the first of a

Demetrius of Pharos (also Pharus) (Greek: Δημήτριος ἐκ Φάρου) was a ruler of Pharos involved in the First Illyrian War, after which he ruled a portion of the Illyrian Adriatic coast on behalf of the Romans, as a Client king.
Demetrius was a regent ruler to Pinnes, the son of Agron who was too young too rule as king. When the Romans were occupied with their own problems, he had grown stronger as an ally of Macedonia and also by conquering Dimallum of Dalmatia, on the shore facing Issa. Together with Scerdilaidas, he sailed south of Lissus and broke the Roman treaty, attacking Roman allies in the Adriatic and by devastating and plundering many cities in the Cyclades and the Peloponnese. He was expelled from Illyria by Rome after the Second Illyrian War and became a trusted councilor at the court of Philip V of Macedon. He became a strong political influence to Philip V and encouraged him to clash with Rome. Demetrius remained there until his death at Messene in 214 BC while attempting to take the city.
Demetrius, described as Illyrian or Greek, was from the Greek colony on the island of Pharos (modern Hvar, founded in 385 BC, in Croatia), in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of

Admiral Sir John Hawkins (also spelled as Hawkyns) (Plymouth 1532 – 12 November 1595) was an English shipbuilder, naval administrator and commander, merchant, navigator, and slave trader. As treasurer (1577) and controller (1589) of the Royal Navy, he rebuilt older ships and helped design the faster ships that withstood the Spanish Armada in 1588. He later devised the naval blockade to intercept Spanish treasure ships. One of the foremost seamen of 16th-century England, he was the chief architect of the Elizabethan navy. In the battle in which the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, Hawkins served as a vice admiral. He was knighted for gallantry.
William, John's father, was a confidant of Henry VIII of England and one of England's principal sea captains, having sailed to the New World ca. 1527. Sir Francis Drake, John's second cousin, helped him in his second voyage.
The first Englishman recorded to have taken slaves from Africa was John Lok, a London trader who, in 1555, brought five slaves from Guinea. A second London trader taking slaves at that time was William Towerson whose fleet sailed into Plymouth following his 1556 voyage to Africa and from Plymouth on his 1557 voyage.

The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the separate Ulster Transport Authority). Its general duty under the Transport Act 1947 was to provide "an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of public inland transport and port facilities within Great Britain for passengers and goods", excluding transport by air.
The BTC came into operation on 1 January 1948. Its first chairman was Lord Hurcomb, with Miles Beevor as Chief Secretary. Its main holdings were the networks and assets of the Big Four national regional railway companies: Great Western Railway, London and North Eastern Railway, London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway. It also took over 55 other railway undertakings, 19 canal undertakings and 246 road haulage firms, as well as the work of the London Passenger Transport Board, which was already publicly owned. The nationalisation package also included the fleets of 'private owner wagons', which industrial concerns had used to transport goods

Kristoffer Throndsen (c. 1500–1565), posthumously also with the family name Rustung, was a squire, admiral, feudal overlord in Norway and Denmark, privateer captain and pirate. Kristoffer served Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson, the interregnum leader of Norway, in the years ending the Kalmar Union.
Kristoffer is famous for playing a role in the last years before the reformation in Norway, firstly as head of the national fleet, defending Norway from attacking Danish ships; also, notably, for having murdered Vincent Lunge, a Danish nobleman sent to Bergen in 1537 to enforce the Norwegian annexation by Denmark, by Danish King Christian III. This dramatic moment in Norwegian history is memorialized today in an annual "midnight opera" sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture, titled Olav Engelbrektsson, which takes place on the premises of the castle, outside of Trondheim.
Kristoffer appealed for pardon from Christian III, (probably for the murder) but also, notably, for his pirating of the Norwegian coast under foreign flags, whereby he attacked Danish ships and installations in Norway after 1536. He was granted a post under the Danish crown, which badly needed a naval leader; He

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the U.S. military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission (with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters) and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its mission set. It operates under the Department of Homeland Security during peacetime, and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy by the President at any time, or by Congress during time of war.
Founded by Alexander Hamilton as the Revenue Marine first, and later as the Revenue Cutter Service on 4 August 1790, it is the United States' oldest continuous seagoing service. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton headed the USRCS, and the branch was involved in every war from 1790 to World War 1. As of August 2009 the Coast Guard had approximately 42,000 men and women on active duty, 7,500 reservists, 30,000 auxiliarists, and 7,700 full-time civilian employees.
The Coast Guard's legal authority differs from the other four armed services: it operates simultaneously under Title 10 of the United

Baldassarre Cossa (c. 1370 – 21 December 1418) was Pope John XXIII (1410–1415) during the Western Schism. The Catholic Church regards him as an antipope.
Baldassarre Cossa was born on the island of Procida or Ischia in the Kingdom of Naples into a noble but impoverished family. Initially he followed a military career, taking part in the Angevin-Neapolitan war. His two brothers were sentenced to death for piracy by Ladislaus of Naples.
He studied law at the University of Bologna and obtained a doctorate. In 1392 he entered the service of Pope Boniface IX, first working in Bologna and then in Rome. (The Western Schism had begun in 1378 and there were two competing popes at the time, one in Avignon supported by France and Spain, and one in Rome supported by most of Italy, Germany and England.) Still a member of the laity, he became Cardinal deacon in 1402 and Papal legate in Forlì in 1403. At this time Cossa also had some links with local robber bands, often used to intimidate his rivals and attack carriages, this part of Cossa's life isn't widely known, but gave him certain influence and power in the region.
He was one of the seven cardinals who, in May 1408, deserted Pope Gregory

The Australian Council of National Trusts (ACNT) is the peak body for community-based, non-government organisations committed to promoting and conserving Australia's indigenous, natural and historic heritage. Incorporated in 1965, it federates the eight autonomous National Trusts in each Australian state and internal self-governing territory, providing them with a national secretariat and a national and international presence.
Collectively, the constituent National Trusts own or manage over 300 heritage places (the majority held in perpetuity), and manage a volunteer workforce of 7000 while also employing about 350 people nation-wide. Around 1,000,000 visitors experience the properties and their collections in Australia each year.
The constituent organisations are:
Modelled on the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty and inspired by local campaigns to conserve native bushland and preserve old buildings, the first Australian national trusts were formed in New South Wales in 1947, South Australia in 1955 and Victoria in 1956; followed later in Western Australia, Tasmania and Queensland.
The driving force behind the establishment of the National Trust in

Sir Douglas Mawson, OBE, FRS, FAA (5 May 1882 – 14 October 1958) was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and Academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Mawson was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
He was appointed geologist to an expedition to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1903; his report The geology of the New Hebrides, was one of the first major geological works of Melanesia. Also that year he published a geological paper on Mittagong, New South Wales. His major influences in his geological career were Professor Edgeworth David and Professor Archibald Liversidge. He then became a lecturer in petrology and mineralogy at the University of Adelaide in 1905. He identified and first described the mineral Davidite, named for Edgeworth David.
Douglas turned down an invitation to join Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition in 1910; Australian geologist Griffith Taylor went with Scott instead. Mawson chose to lead his own expedition, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, to King George V Land and Adelie Land, the sector of the Antarctic continent immediately south of Australia, which at the time

Peter James "Pete" Bethune (born 4 April 1965) is a New Zealand promoter of bio-fuels and conservationist. He is the holder of the world record for the fastest trip around the world in a powerboat and was involved with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He was captain of the Ady Gil (previously the Earthrace) until it sank after a collision with a Japanese whaling vessel. He was convicted in Japan for a direct action that involved boarding that whaling vessel to arrest the captain and received a suspended sentence.
Bethune grew up in Hamilton East, New Zealand as one of five children. He studied science at the University of Waikato and engineering at the University of Auckland. He has two daughters with his wife, Sharyn, his high school sweetheart, from whom he is separated.
He began his career as an oil exploration engineer and worked in the North Sea and Libya. In 1997, he co-founded CamSensor Technologies. The company manufactured automated camera systems for controlling robots used in complex tasks such as cutting up and grading meat carcasses. He later moved to Sydney to establish the business there.
He is motivated by the potential for alternative fuels. In 2003, Bethune

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services. The modern army has its roots in the Continental Army which was formed on 14 June 1775, before the establishment of the United States, to meet the demands of the American Revolutionary War. The Congress of the Confederation officially created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 after the end of the Revolutionary War to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The army considers itself to be descended from the Continental Army and thus dates its inception from the origins of that force.
The primary mission of the army is "to fight and win our Nation’s wars by providing prompt, sustained land dominance across the full range of military operations and spectrum of conflict in support of combatant commanders." The army is a military service within the Department of the Army, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The army is headed by the Secretary of the Army, and the top military officer in the department is the Chief of

Samuel Bellamy (c. February 23, 1689 – April 26, 1717), better known as "Black Sam" Bellamy, was an English pirate who operated in the early 18th century. Though his known career as a pirate captain lasted little more than a year, Bellamy and his crew captured more than 50 ships – making him the wealthiest pirate in history – before his death at age 28. Called "Black Sam" in Cape Cod folklore because he eschewed the fashionable powdered wig in favor of tying back his long black hair with a simple band, Bellamy became known for his mercy and generosity toward those he captured on his raids. This reputation earned him another nickname, the "Prince of Pirates". He likened himself to Robin Hood, with his crew calling themselves "Robin Hood's Men."
Bellamy was probably the youngest of six known children born to Stephen and Elizabeth Bellamy in the parish of Hittisleigh in Devonshire, England in 1689. Elizabeth died in childbirth and was buried on February 23, 1689, three weeks before her infant son Samuel's baptism on March 18. The future pirate became a sailor at a young age and traveled to Cape Cod, where, according to local lore, he took up an affair with a local girl named Maria

Anicetus was the leader of an unsuccessful anti-Roman uprising in Polemonia in 69. Formerly a freedman of King Polemon II of Pontus, Anicetus commanded the royal fleet until Pontus was converted into a Roman province under Emperor Nero in 63. During the civil war following Nero’s death, Anicetus sided with Vitellius and led a general insurrection against Vespasian in Pontus and Colchis 69. The rebels destroyed the Roman fleet (Classis Pontica) in a sudden attack on Trapezus and then turned to piracy using a type of boat known as camarae.
The revolt was however put down by the Roman reinforcements under Virdius Geminus, a lieutenant of Vespasian. Overtaken at the mouth of the river Cohibus (now the Khobi River located in Mingrelia of Lazica, Anicetus was surrendered to the Romans by the local tribesmen, and put to death.

Francis Spriggs (d. 1725?) was a British pirate who, associated with George Lowther and Edward Low, was active in the Caribbean and the Bay of Honduras during the early 1720s.
Although much of his early life is unknown, Francis Spriggs was first recorded serving as a quartermaster for Captain Edward Low (possibly as part of the original crew members who left the service of Captain George Lowther). However, after being given command of the recently captured the 12-gun British man of war the Squirel (renamed the Delight shortly thereafter), he and Low apparently had a falling out over the disciplining of one of the crew around Christmas 1724, resulting in Spriggs deserting Low in the night.
After leaving Low, Spriggs and the crew began flying a black flag similar to Captain Low's and set sail for the West Indies. By January 28, 1725, he had looted a Rhode Island slaver captained by Richard Duffie. Capturing a Portuguese bark en route, they looted the ship's stores while the crew were put through "the sweats" or a "sweat", a mild form of torture in which a ring of candles is lit in a circle around the mainmast and each crewman was made to enter the circle and run around the mast while

Woodes Rogers (ca. 1679 – 15 July 1732) was an English sea captain, privateer, and, later, the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas. He is known as the captain of the vessel that rescued the marooned Alexander Selkirk, whose plight is generally believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
Rogers came from an affluent seafaring family, grew up in Poole and Bristol, and served a marine apprenticeship to a Bristol sea captain. His father, who held shares in many ships, died when Rogers was in his mid-twenties, leaving Rogers in control of the family shipping business. In 1707, Rogers was approached by Captain William Dampier, who sought support for a privateering voyage against the Spanish, with whom the British were at war. Rogers led the expedition, which consisted of two well-armed ships, the Duke and the Duchess, and was the captain of the Duke. In three years, Rogers and his men went around the world, capturing several ships in the Pacific Ocean. En route, the expedition rescued Selkirk, finding him on Juan Fernandez Island on 1 February 1709. When the expedition returned to England in October 1711, Rogers had circumnavigated the globe, while retaining his original

Jean Lafitte (ca. 1776 – ca. 1823) was a French pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his elder brother, Pierre, spelled their last name Laffite, but English-language documents of the time used "Lafitte." The latter has become the commonly seen spelling in the United States, including for places named for him.
Lafitte is believed to have been born either in France or the French colony of Saint-Domingue. By 1805, he operated a warehouse in New Orleans to help disperse the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre Lafitte. After the United States government passed the Embargo Act of 1807, the Lafittes moved their operations to an island in Barataria Bay. By 1810, their new port was very successful; the Lafittes pursued a successful smuggling operation and also started to engage in piracy.
Though Lafitte tried to warn Barataria of a British attack, the American authorities successfully invaded in 1814 and captured most of Lafitte's fleet. In return for a pardon, Lafitte helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans against the British in 1815. The Lafittes became spies for the Spanish during the Mexican War of Independence and moved to Galveston

Eric of Pomerania KG (1381 or 1382 – 3 May 1459) was King Eric (Eirik) III of Norway (1389–1442), King Eric VII of Denmark (1396–1439), and King Eric (Ericus) of Sweden (1396–1439; known there in history mainly as Erik av Pommern). He was the first King of the Nordic Kalmar Union, succeeding his adoptive mother Margaret I of Denmark.
Referring to Eric of Pomerania as King Eric XIII of Sweden is a later invention, counting backwards from Eric XIV (1560–1568), who adopted hs numeral according to a fictitious history of Sweden. Going back into prehistory, it is not known how many Swedish monarchs were named Eric before this one (at least six were), so it would be speculative to try to affix a mathematically accurate one here.
Born Boguslaw, the son of Polish Duke of Pomerania Wartislaw VII and Mary of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Eric's paternal grandparents were Boguslaw V, Duke of Pomerania and his second wife Adelheid of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. His maternal grandparents were Henry III, Duke of Mecklenburg and Ingeborg of Denmark, Duchess of Mecklenburg. Henry was a rival of Olaf Haakonsson in regard to the Danish succession in 1375.
Ingeborg was a daughter of Valdemar IV of Denmark and his

Roche Braziliano (sometimes spelled Rock, Roch, Roc, Roque, Brazilliano, or Brasiliano) (c. 1630 – disappeared c. 1671), was a Dutch pirate born in the town of Groningen. His pirate career lasted from 1654 until his disappearance around 1671. He was first eternalized in Alexandre Exquemelin's 1678 book The Buccaneers of America; Exquemelin did not know Braziliano's real name, but historians have found he was probably born as Gerrit Gerritszoon and that he and his parents moved to Dutch-controlled Brazil. He is known as "Roche Braziliano", which in English translates to "Rock the Brazilian", due to his long exile in Brazil.
Roche Braziliano was a notoriously cruel buccaneer who operated out of Port Royal, Jamaica. He was a privateer in Bahia, Brazil, before moving to Port Royal in 1654. He led a mutiny and adopted the life of a buccaneer. On his first adventure he captured a ship of immense value and brought it back safely to Jamaica. He eventually was caught and sent to Spain, but he escaped with threats of vengeance from his followers. He soon resumed his criminal career, purchasing a new ship from fellow pirate François l'Olonnais and later sailing in company with Sir Henry

Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin (also spelled Esquemeling, Exquemeling, or Oexmelin) (c. 1645–1707) was a French writer best known as the author of one of the most important sourcebooks of 17th century piracy, first published in Dutch as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, in Amsterdam, by Jan ten Hoorn, in 1678.
Born about 1645, it is likely that Exquemelin was a native of Harfleur, France, who on his return from buccaneering settled in Holland, possibly because he was a Huguenot. In 1666 he was engaged by the French West India Company and went to Tortuga, where he stayed for three years. There he enlisted with the buccaneers, in particular with the band of Henry Morgan, whose confidante he was, probably as a barber-surgeon, and remained with them until 1674. Shortly afterwards he returned to Europe and settled in Amsterdam where he qualified professionally as a surgeon, his name appearing on the 1679 register of the Dutch Surgeons' Guild. However, he was later once again in the Caribbean as his name appears on the muster-roll as a surgeon in the attack on Cartagena in 1697.
The bibliographic legacy of Exquemelin's "History of the Bouccaneers of America" is complex. It has rightly been

The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the naval branch of the Confederate States armed forces, established by an act of the Confederate Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War. The three major tasks of the Confederate Navy during the whole of its existence were the protection of Southern harbors and coastlines from outside invasion, making the war costly for the United States by attacking U.S. merchant ships world-wide and breaking the Union Blockade by drawing off U.S. Navy ships in pursuit of the Confederate raiders.
The C. S. Navy could never achieve equality with the Union Navy, so it used technological innovation, such as ironclads, submarines, torpedo boats, and naval mines (then known as torpedoes) to gain advantage. In February 1861 the Confederate Navy had thirty ships, only fourteen of which were seaworthy, while the Union Navy had ninety vessels; the C. S. Navy eventually grew to 101 ships to meet the rise in naval conflicts and enemy threats.
On April 20, 1861 the Union was forced to quickly abandon the important Gosport Navy Yard. In doing so they failed to effectively burn the facility, its

Sigval Bergesen d.y. (1893 – 1980) was one of Norway’s leading shipping magnates and industrial entrepreneurs.
He was born in Stavanger as a son of Sigval Bergesen (1863–1956), who was also a shipping magnate, and Rachel Racine (1866–1936). He was a grandson of Ole Bergesen, brother of Ole Bergesen and uncle of Berge Sigval Natanael Bergesen and Ole Bergesen. He was a maternal grandfather of Morten Sigval Bergesen and Petter C. G. Sundt.
He was married twice; first to Ingerid Sømme (1895–1980) from December 1916 to 1945. She was a sister of Iacob Dybwad Sømme and Sven Sømme. From 1945 he was married to Nanki de Fekete (1903–1983), a former wife of Emil Lie.
In 1935 he broke with his father to form his own company, Bergesen d.y.. The same year he bought the tanker President de Vogue (renamed Bergesund), in 1937 Charles Racine and in 1939 Anders Jahre (renamed Bergeland). By the time of the war he then had three major tankers, though Charles Racine was hit by torpedoes and destroyed in 1942. Bergesen used the war to position himself in the market, and by 1950 he had four ships in his fleet, by 1955 seven, and 16 by 1970.
In 1942 he also took control of Rosenberg Mekaniske Verksted, a

Bill Miller is Chairman and former Chief Investment Officer of Legg Mason Capital Management, a subsidiary of Legg Mason, Inc. He is formerly the portfolio manager of the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust (Mutual fund: LMVTX) and is currently the portfolio manager of the Legg Mason Capital Management Opportunity Trust (Mutual fund: LMOPX) mutual funds. Miller is also Chairman Emeritus of the Santa Fe Institute.
Miller graduated with honors from Washington and Lee University in 1972 with a degree in economics. Subsequent to graduation, he served as a military intelligence officer overseas and pursued graduate studies in philosophy in the Ph.D. program at The Johns Hopkins University.
Prior to joining Legg Mason in 1981, he served as treasurer of the J.E. Baker Company, a major manufacturer of products for the steel and cement industries. Miller received his CFA designation in 1986.
Miller was the director of research of Legg Mason from October 1981 through June 1985. Miller co-managed (with Ernie Kiehne) the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust from its inception in 1982. Over the years, Mr. Miller and his team have received numerous accolades for their management

Carnival Corporation & plc is a British–American global cruise company, and the world's largest cruise ship operator. Comprising Carnival plc, which can trace its origin back to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company of the early 19th century, the company has a claim to be the world's oldest established cruise ship operator, with P&O having introduced the world's first passenger ships in 1844.
Carnival Corporation & plc is a dual listed company, with headquarters at Carnival House in Southampton, Hampshire, England and Carnival Place in the Miami suburb of Doral, Florida, USA. The constituent corporation and plc are separate listed companies and have different shareholder bodies, but they jointly own all the operating companies in the group. Carnival Corporation owns the majority stake; however as part of the merger between Carnival Corporation and P&O Princess Cruises in 2002 it was agreed that P&O Princess would be relisted as Carnival plc in London, remaining a separate company with a predominantly British shareholder body and largely retaining the P&O Princess executive team. Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc stocks are currently traded on the London Stock

Pier Gerlofs Donia (c.1480 – 1520) was a Frisian warrior, pirate, and rebel. He is best known by his West Frisian nickname Grutte Pier ("Big Pier"; in the pre-1980 West Frisian spelling written as Greate Pier), or by the Dutch translation Grote Pier which referred to his legendary size and strength.
His life is mostly shrouded in legend. Based upon a description now attributed to Pier’s contemporary Petrus Thaborita, the 19th-century historian Conrad Busken Huet wrote that Grutte Pier was
Grutte Pier was born Pier Gerlofs Donia (Pier Gerlofs), around 1480 in Kimswerd near the city of Harlingen, Wonseradeel in Friesland, Netherlands. Pier Gerlofs was one of at least four children born to Fokel Sybrants Bonga and Gerlof Piers. Pier's mother Fokel was the daughter of the Schieringer noblemen Sybrant Doytsesz. Bonga of Bongastate, Kimswerd.
Pier married Rintsje Syrtsema and they had two children, a son named Gerlof and a daughter named Wobbel, who were born around 1510. Pier died in 1520, and in 1525, Pier's mother appointed in her will Pier's brother, Sybren, as guardian of Pier's children, who still were minors. Pier and Pier's brother-in-law Ane Pijbes (husband of Tijdt Gerlofs),

Royal Dutch Shell plc (LSE: RDSA, RDSB), commonly known as Shell, is an Anglo–Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's second largest company by 2011 revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is also one of the world's most valuable companies. As of September 2012, its largest shareholder is BlackRock with 5% stake, while the Qatar Investment Authority has announced a plan to raise its stake from below 3% to 7%.
Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has major renewable energy activities, including in biofuels, hydrogen, solar and wind power. It has operations in over 90 countries, produces around 3.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has 44,000 service stations worldwide. Shell Oil Company, its subsidiary in the United States, is one of its largest businesses.
Shell has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. As

Captain Edward "Ned" Low (also spelled Lowe or Loe; ca. 1690 – ca. 1724) was a notorious English pirate during the latter days of the Golden Age of Piracy, in the early 18th century. He was born around 1690 into poverty in Westminster, London, and was a thief from a young age. Low moved to Boston, Massachusetts, as a young man. His wife died in childbirth in late 1719. Two years later, he became a pirate, operating off the coasts of New England and the Azores, and in the Caribbean.
He captained a number of ships, usually maintaining a small fleet of three or four. Low and his pirate crews captured at least a hundred ships during his short career, burning most of them. Although he was active for only three years, Low remains notorious as one of the most vicious pirates of the age, with a reputation for violently torturing his victims before killing them. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described Low as "savage and desperate," and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality". The New York Times called him a torturer, whose methods would have "done credit to the ingenuity of the Spanish Inquisition in its darkest days". The circumstances of Low's death, which took place around 1724, have been

Evgeny Markovich Shvidler (Russian: Евгений Маркович Швидлер, born 23 March 1964), also Eugene Shvidler, is a Russian oil businessman. Although not often referred to as one of the prominent business oligarchs, he still made his fortune in Russia during the privatization of Russian industry.
Shvidler was born in Ufa, Russia. He received a degree in mathematics from the Gubkin Institute of Petrochemicals and Natural Gas and an MBA from Fordham University. Early in his career he worked for Deloitte & Touche in New York and became a U.S. citizen. He later returned to Russia, where he teamed up with Roman Abramovich to start the oil trading outfit Runicom S.A. In 1995 they partnered to gain control of oil giant Sibneft, which Shvidler joined initially as senior vice president. He served as company president from 1998 until October 2005, when Russian state energy company Gazprom acquired Sibneft. For most of his tenure, Sibneft was Russia's fastest growing oil company in terms of production, and its most profitable in terms of earnings per barrel.
Eugene Shvidler is currently chairman of Millhouse, LLC, the investment and asset management company he shares with Abramovich and their

Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate, co-founder and chief executive of Oracle Corporation, one of the world's leading enterprise software companies. As of 2012, he is the third wealthiest American citizen, with an estimated worth of $41 billion. The bulk of Ellison's fortune comes from his 22.5 percent stake in Oracle.
Larry Ellison was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, New York. His mother, Florence Spellman, was an unwed 19-year-old of Jewish heritage and his father was an Italian American U.S. Air Force pilot, who was stationed abroad before Spellman realized that she had become pregnant by him. After Larry Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother determined that she was unable to care for him adequately, and arranged for him to be adopted by her aunt and uncle in Chicago. Lillian Spellman Ellison and Louis Ellison adopted him when he was nine months old. Lillian was the second wife of Louis Ellison, an immigrant who had arrived in the United States in 1905 from Russia. Larry Ellison did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48.
Ellison graduated from Eugene Field

Jacob Willekens or Wilckens (1564 – 1649) was a Dutch admiral on a fleet to the Dutch Indies, and a herring seller, who went to sea again at the age of fifty for the Dutch West Indies Company. His most well-known success was undoubtedly the conquest of São Salvador da Bahia, the then capital of Brazil. His fleet, which included Dutch corsair Piet Hein as vice admiral, departed from Texel on December 22, 1623 with between 26-36 ships and 3,300 sailors towards South America. At the beginning of June 1624, they began their attack from sea and soon captured the Portuguese stronghold with little resistance. They occupied Bahia for over a year before the local population took up arms under acting governor Matias de Albuquerque and Archbishop Dom Marcos Teixeira who eventually expelled them with the help of a combined Spanish-Portuguese fleet numbering 52 warships and 12,000 soldiers in May 1625. This was the first major WIC privateering expedition to the region.
He would also participate in an attack on Rio de Janeiro with Hein in 1626, but after a dispute over who would be in command, the two separated with Willekens returning to Amsterdam. Willekens joined the vroedschap in 1639 and

Aruj or Arouj (Turkish: Oruç Reis, Arabic: عروج بربروس, Spanish: Arrudye; c. 1474 – 1518) was the elder brother of Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha and Ottoman Bey (Governor) of Algiers and Beylerbey (Chief Governor) of the West Mediterranean. He was born on the Ottoman island of Midilli (Lesbos in today's Greece) and was killed in a battle with the Spaniards at Tlemcen in the Ottoman Eyalet of Algeria.
He became known as Baba Aruj or Baba Oruç (Father Aruj) when he transported large numbers of Moriscos refugees from Spain to North Africa; he was known through folk etymology in Europe as Barbarossa (which meant Redbeard in Italian).
Sources refer to him as a Greek, as a Turk or as an Albanian by origin. Oruç was born in the 1470s on the Ottoman island of Midilli (Lesbos in present-day Greece; Greek: Λέσβος) to his father Yakup Ağa, a Greek renegade or Turk as well as a former Sipahi from the Ottoman city of Yenice-i Vardar (modern Yannitsa in Greece) and his wife, Katerina, from the Aegean island of Lesbos. Yakup Ağa took part in the Ottoman conquest of Lesbos (Midilli) from the Genoese in 1462, and as a reward, was granted the fief of the Bonova village in the island. He married a local

John Holt plc is a Nigerian conglomerate. It has been an important participant in many areas of the economy. The Nigerian company is a subsidiary of John Holt & Co. (Liverpool) Ltd, a United Kingdom company. A minority of the shares are traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
The company traces its origins to 1862 when John Holt, 20 years old at the time, with £27 in his pocket, sailed from Liverpool to take up an appointment as a shop assistant in a grocery store in Fernando Po (now Equatorial Guinea). Five years later, he bought out his employer, and he was joined by his brother Jonathan. In 1868 Johnathan bought a schooner, which enabled the brothers to open more trading posts in West Africa. In 1874 the brothers opened an office in Liverpool. In 1881, John entered the palm oil trade.
In 1884 the brothers formed a partnership, John Holt and Company, to consolidate their business interests. Subsequently John entered into new partnerships, including a venture in Lagos in Nigeria in 1887.
In 1897 the partnerships were absorbed into a new limited company, John Holt & Co. (Liverpool) Ltd. The company built up an extensive produce trade, in which palm oil, palm kernels, rubber and

Leslie "Les" H. Wexner (born September 8, 1937 in Dayton, Ohio) is an American businessman from Columbus, Ohio, and currently chairman and CEO of the Limited Brands corporation.
Wexner was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Dayton, Ohio. He attended The Ohio State University, majoring in business administration. He became a member of Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. He briefly attended law school, but left to help his parents run their store in a suburban Columbus, Ohio, shopping center. In 1963, Les Wexner borrowed $5,000 from his aunt to start 'The Limited' (so named because the store focused on clothing for younger women, unlike his parents' general merchandise store). The Limited opened its first store in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington. Wexner's parents closed their store one year later in 1964, and joined their son at 'The Limited'. Wexner took Limited Brands public in 1969, listed as LTD on the NYSE. Over the years he built a large retailing and marketing conglomerate, which currently includes: Victoria's Secret, Pink (Victoria's Secret), Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel, C. O. Bigelow, The White Barn Candle Company, and La Senza. Previous brands that have spun

Nasser Al-Rashid (born 1939) is a Saudi Arabian businessman. (Rashid Engineering). He is reputedly an influential advisor to the Saudi royal family and a billionaire. However he is not included in the Forbes list of the world's richest people as his personal wealth, like that of many Saudi insiders, cannot be assessed with much accuracy from publicly available information.
He is an alumnus and donor of the University of Texas, which has the Dr. Nasser Al-Rashid Strength and Training Center named in his honour. He is also a large donor to the University of Miami (FL) and its medical school. He owns one of the largest yachts in the world, the Lady Moura, which reportedly cost him over US$200 mm to build in the late 1980s.
His previous wife, Mouna Ayoub, is considered to be a French socialite. He is currently married to a Belgian-Algerian woman, Safia El Malqui, since early 1998. Not much is known publicly of Al-Rashid, who prior to taking delivery of his yacht, maintained a relatively low profile among the wealthy Saudi elite.
July 7, 2007 Nasser Al-Rashid boards the Lady Moura and departs for Italy.
October 16, 2010 Lady Moura berthed at Monaco
Private Jets G550 VP-BNR and VP-CNR,

Turgut Reis (1485 – 23 June 1565) was an Ottoman Admiral and privateer who also served as Bey of Algiers; Beylerbey of the Mediterranean; and first Bey, later Pasha, of Tripoli. Under his naval command the Ottoman Empire maritime was extended across North Africa. When Turgut was serving as pasha, he adorned and built up the city of Tripoli, making it one of the most impressive cities along the North African Coast. Known in different languages under such names as Dragut or Darghouth (Arabic: درغوث‎), the name in Turkey is Turgut Reis.
Turgut was a Muslim seaman of Greek descent. He was born in a village near Bodrum, on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. He was captured and taken prisoner by the corsairs in his youth and had converted to Islam. He was born in the sub-district called Saravalos in the western tip of Bodrum peninsula (which is called Turgutreis in his honour today) and most probably in the Karabağ village on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor. At the age of 12 he was noticed by an Ottoman army commander for his extraordinary talent in using spears and arrows and was recruited by him. Under his support the young Turgut became a skilled sailor, an outstanding gunner, and was

Charles Swan was a reluctant buccaneer, killed 1690.
Captain Swan was forced into piracy by his crew in the 1680s, and proceeded to write letters to the owners of his ship Cygnet in London, begging them to intercede with James II of England for his pardon - even as he looted his way up and down the coast of South America.
He was present at the attack on Payta in 1684, where he petulantly burned the town after no booty was found. On 25 August 1685, he separated from his confederates Peter Harris and Edward Davis, and sailed up the coast of Mexico, but met with little success. He seized the town of Santa Pecaque but lost fifty men to a Spanish counter-attack, including Basil Ringrose.
On 31 March 1686 he set out across the Pacific to ambush the Manila treasure galleon, but failed to over-take the ship. Due to the failure of the assault on Santa Pecaque provisions were short, and by the time they reached the crew were plotting to eat their officers of the Cygnet as it crossed the Pacific (starting with the Captain). (Swan is reported to have remarked that the lean William Dampier would have made them a poor meal; the captain himself was a remarkably fat man.) Fortunately they arrived

Hapag-Lloyd is a German transportation company comprising a cargo container shipping line, Hapag-Lloyd AG, which in turn owns other subsidiaries such as Hapag-Lloyd Ships and a cruise line, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises which is now integrated into TUI AG, Hanover. It was formed in 1970 as a merger of two 19th century companies, Hapag, which dated from 1847, and Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) or North German Lloyd (NGL), which was formed in 1856. Hapag-Lloyd was acquired in 1998 by TUI AG (Hanover) and became its fully owned subsidiary in 2002. In 2009, TUI sold a majority stake to a group of private investors. The main founders of Hapag and Lloyd in the 19th century were Berenberg Bank and H. J. Merck & Co.
Hapag-Lloyd was formed in 1970 through a merger of Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) and the North German Lloyd.
The Hamburg-Amerikanische Paketfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft for shipping across the Atlantic Ocean was founded in Hamburg. In 1912, Hapag built the first of their "Big Three" ocean liners; the Imperator, followed by her sister Vaterland. The third sister, Bismarck, was under construction at the outbreak of World War I and was completed after the war for White Star Line as the Majestic.

The Pakistan Navy (Urdu: پاک بحریہ; English IPA: Pɑk Bahri'a) (reporting name: PN), is the naval warfare and the uniform service branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces, responsible for Pakistan's 1,046 kilometres (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the defence of important civilian harbors and military bases. The Pakistan Navy came into the existence after the independence of Pakistan in 1947, and the Navy is currently headed by Admiral Muhammad Asif Sandila. Navy Day is celebrated on September 8 in commemoration of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.
The Pakistan Navy's current and primary role is to protect the country's economic and military interests at home and abroad, executing the foreign and defence policies of the Pakistan Government through the exercise of military effect, diplomatic activities and other activities in support of these objectives. As for the 21st century, the Pakistan Navy also focuses on limited global expeditionary operations, and played a vital role in the establishment of Pakistan Antarctic Programme.
The Pakistan Navy is also supported by the Pakistan Coast Guard, Pakistan Marines, and the Maritime Security Agency(MSA), the combat paramilitary

Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins (or Hawkyns) (c. 1562 – April 17, 1622) was a 17th-century English seaman, explorer and Elizabethan "Sea Dog", and the son of Admiral Sir John Hawkins.
He was from his earlier days familiar with ships and the sea, and in 1582 he accompanied his uncle, William Hawkins, to the West Indies. In 1585 he was captain of a galliot in Drake's expedition to the Spanish main, in 1588 he commanded a queen's ship against the Armada, and in 1590 he served with his father's expedition at the coast of Portugal.
In 1593 he purchased the discovery ship Dainty, a vessel originally built for his father and used by him in his expeditions, and sailed for the West Indies, the Spanish Main and the South Seas. It seems clear that his project was to prey on the oversea possessions of Spanish crown. Hawkins, however, in an account of the voyage written thirty years afterwards, maintained, and by that time perhaps had really persuaded himself, that his expedition was undertaken purely for the purpose of geographical discovery. After visiting the coast of Brazil, the Dainty passed through the Straits of Magellan, and in due course reached Valparaíso.
Having plundered the town,

Wijerd Jelckama (also spelled Wierd and Wijard) (c. 1490–1523) was a Frisian military commander, warlord and member of the Arumer Zwarte Hoop ("Arumer Black Hope"). He was the lieutenant of Pier Gerlofs Donia (also known as Grutte Pier) and fought along his side against the Saxon and Hollandic invaders. Jelckama took Donia's place as freedom fighter after Donia died in 1520.
Jelckama was born in the year 1490 in a large family of farmers and petty noblemen. He was descended from knights who had participated in the Crusades. One of his ancestors from his father's side of the family had died at the Siege of Antioch.
Together with Pier Gerlofs Donia, Jelckama fought against the Saxon warriors that occupied their homeland of Frisia, at the capture of Medemblik, and in the siege of Middelburg castle.
In addition to the area occupied by the Saxons, parts of Frisia were conquered by Denmark, Holland, and local duchies. Donia and Jelckama's goal was to rid Frisia of all foreign powers and regain independence. Under the leadership of Donia, they used guerilla tactics and gained several victories like the successful siege of two Hollandic castles and the city of Medemblik. Their greatest

The Hudson's Bay Company (French: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson), abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" ("La Baie" in French) is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada and the United States including the Bay, Lord & Taylor, Zellers, and Home Outfitters. The company head office is in the Simpson Tower in Toronto, Ontario.
The company was incorporated by English royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay and functioned as the de facto government in parts of North America before European states and later the United States laid claim to those territories. It was at one time the largest landowner in the world, with Rupert's Land having 15% of North American acreage. From its long-time headquarters at York Factory on Hudson Bay, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of British-controlled North America for several centuries. Undertaking early exploration, its traders and trappers forged early relationships with many groups of First Nations/Native

The Navy of the Argentine Republic or Armada of the Argentine Republic (Spanish: Armada de la República Argentina — ARA, also Armada Argentina or Argentine Navy) is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Army and the Air Force.
The Argentine Navy day is celebrated on May 17, anniversary of the victory achieved in 1814 in the Battle of Montevideo over the Spanish fleet during the war of Independence.
Each ship of the Argentine Navy is designated with the prefix "ARA" before its name.
The Argentine Navy was created in the aftermath of the May Revolution of May 25, 1810, which started the war for independence from Spain. The first navy was created to support Manuel Belgrano at the Paraguay campaign, but it was sunk by ships from Montevideo, and did not take part in that conflict. Renewed conflicts with Montevideo led to the creation of a second one, which captured the city. As Buenos Aires had little maritime history, most men in the navy were from other nations, such as the Irish admiral William Brown, who directed the operation.
As the cost of maintaining a navy was too high, most of the Argentine naval

Dominique You (1775-1830) was a privateer, pirate, and soldier.
Born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (which is now Haiti) in 1775, You joined the army of Revolutionary France as an artillerist. He served in the French Republic's artillery corp. In 1802 he accompanied General Victor Leclerc to Santo Domingo to quell Toussaint Louverture's slave revolt. Yellow fever took the lives of many of the French soldiers including General Leclerc. Afterwards You went to New Orleans where he joined his half brothers Jean Lafitte and Pierre Lafitte, where he became the captain on the French Corsair Le Pandoure. He was nicknamed "Captain Dominique" by the French and "Johnness" by the Americans. He acquired quite a reputation for being very bold and daring. During the next few years he and his brothers became quite successful smugglers in the Louisiana bayous, and as privateers preyed on Spanish ships in the Gulf of Mexico, doing extensive damage to Spanish commerce in the gulf. On one occasion, a storm on the Mississippi River caused severe damage to the Pandoure and almost killed Captain You.
In July 1814 You was falsely convicted of piracy in the gulf, but the Americans failed to capture

Viking Line is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Viking Line is operated from the Åland Islands.
Viking Line's history can be traced back to 1959, when a group of sea- and businessmen from the Åland Islands province in Finland formed Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen, purchased a steam-powered car-ferry SS Dinard from the UK, renamed her SS Viking and began service on the route Korpo (Finland) — Mariehamn (Åland) — Gräddö (Sweden). In the same year the Gotland-based Rederi AB Slite began a service between Simpnäs (Sweden) and Mariehamn.
In 1962, a disagreement caused a group of people to leave Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and form a new company, Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, who began a service linking Gräddö and Mariehamn the following year.
Soon the three companies, all competing for passengers between Åland Islands and Sweden, realised that they in the long run all stood to lose from mutual competition. In 1965 Vikinglinjen and Slite began collaborating, and in the end of July 1966 Viking Line was established as a marketing company for all

The British Railways Board (BRB) was a nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that existed from 1962 to 2001. Until 1997 it was responsible for most railway services in Great Britain, trading under the brand name British Railways and, from 1965, British Rail. It did not operate railways in Northern Ireland, where railways were the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland.
It was a statutory corporation, consisting of a chairman and nine to fifteen other members appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport.
The BRB was created on 1 January 1963 under the Transport Act 1962 by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government to inherit the railway responsibilities of the British Transport Commission, which was dissolved at the same time.
Initially, and for the majority of its history, the BRB operated under the structure inherited from the BTC Railway Executive. Operations were divided into five regions - Eastern, London Midland, Western, Southern and Scottish (later rebranded ScotRail). A North Eastern Region existed initially but was merged into the Eastern Region in 1967.
In the 1980s the BRB moved to a sectoral model based on business activity - InterCity for

Finland Steamship Company (Swedish: Finska Ångfartygs Aktiebolag, abbreviated FÅA, Finnish: Suomen Höyrylaiva Osakeyhtiö, abbreviated SHO) was a Finnish shipping company founded in 1883 by Captain Lars Krogius. In Finnish and Swedish The company was usually referred to simply as FÅA. In 1976, the company changed its name to Effoa, a phonetic spelling of the abbreviation FÅA.
The company was a founding member of the Silja Line consortium. In 1975 FÅA founded Finncarriers together with Finnlines as a joint freight operations venture. At the same time FÅA gave up passenger traffic between Finland and Germany, the ships used on the route were sold to Finnlines. In the 1980s both Finncarriers and Finnlines became fully owned subsidiaries of Effoa. In 1989 Effoa decided to give up its freight-carrying operations, and its shares of Finnlines were transferred to Effoa's owners. Effoa stopped trading as an independent company in 1990 when its freight operations were demerged to form an independent Finnlines, while the passenger operations were merged with Johnson Line (the other partner in Silja Line at the time) to form EffJohn.
In 1945, FÅA was the first company post-World War II to

The Portuguese Navy (Portuguese: Marinha Portuguesa, also known as Marinha de Guerra Portuguesa or as Armada Portuguesa) is the naval branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in cooperation and integrated with the other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the military defence of Portugal. The Portuguese Navy also participates in missions related with international compromises assumed by Portugal (mainly with NATO), as well as missions of civil interest. Today, the Portuguese Navy assumes a dual role capacity: Naval combat missions to assure Portugal's sovereignty and international commitments, and coast guard operations in its territorial waters and areas of influence.
Portuguese naval history is closely connected to the history of Portugal, and one can say that the Naval history is Portuguese History seen from the sea.
The first known battle of the Portuguese Navy was in 1180, during the reign of Portugal's first king, Afonso I of Portugal. The battle occurred when a Portuguese fleet commanded by the knight Fuas Roupinho defeated a Muslim fleet near Cape Espichel. He also made two incursions at Ceuta, in 1181 and 1182, and died during the last of these

The Black Ball Line initially consisted of four packet ships, the Amity, Courier, Pacific and the James Monroe. All of these were running between Liverpool, England and New York City. This first scheduled trans-Atlantic service was founded in 1817. In operation for some 60 years, it took its name from its flag, a black ball on a red background.
The line was founded by a group of New York Quaker merchants headed by Jeremiah Thompson, and included Isaac Wright & Son (William), Francis Thompson and Benjamin Marshall. All were Quakers except Marshall. In 1851, James Baines & Co. of Liverpool entered the packet trade using the same name and flag as the New York company, despite its protests. Thus, for about twenty years, two "Black Ball lines" under separate ownership were operating in direct competition on the transatlantic packet trade. James Baines & Co. also operated ships running between Liverpool and Australia, including famous clipper ships such as Champion of the Seas, James Baines, Lightning, Indian Queen, Marco Polo and Sovereign of the Seas.
The Black Ball Line is mentioned in several sea shanties, such as "Blow the Man Down," "Homeward Bound", and "Hurrah for the Black Ball

Ching Shih (1775–1844) (simplified Chinese: 郑氏; traditional Chinese: 鄭氏; pinyin: Zhèng Shì; Cantonese: Jihng Sih; "widow of Zheng"), also known as Zheng Yi Sao (simplified Chinese: 郑一嫂; traditional Chinese: 鄭一嫂; pinyin: Zhèng Yī Sǎo; Cantonese: Jihng Yāt Sóu; "wife of Zheng Yi"), was a prominent pirate in middle Qing China.
Ching Shih also known as Cheng I Sao terrorized the China Sea in the early 19th century. A brilliant Cantonese pirate, she commanded 1800 ships and more than 80,000 pirates — men, women, and even children. She challenged the world superpower empires at the time such as the British, Portuguese and the Qing dynasty. Undefeated, she would become one of China and Asia's strongest pirates, and one of world history's most powerful pirates. She was also one of the few pirate captains to retire from piracy.
She became subject to numerous books, novels, video games and films.
Little is known about Ching Shih's early life, including her birth name and precise date of birth. She was a Cantonese prostitute who worked in small brothel of Canton, but was captured by pirates. In 1801, she married Zheng Yi, a notorious Cantonese-Chinese pirate. The name she is best remembered

Craig McCaw (born August 11, 1949 in Centralia, Washington) is a Seattle-area businessman and entrepreneur who achieved success as a pioneer in the cellular phone industry. He is the founder of McCaw Cellular (now part of AT&T Mobility) and Clearwire Corporation.
Craig is the second of four sons of Marion and John Elroy McCaw. McCaw's father was a broadcasting magnate. He was in the business of buying and selling TV and radio stations, which brought in wealth but also incurred significant debts. Elroy entered the cable television business in the 1960s, and his four sons worked as linemen and door-to-door salesmen.
When Elroy died, the only company not sold to repay the debt was the small Centralia cable company with estimated 2,000 to 4,000 subscribers, which was in trust. During his senior year at Stanford, Craig took the helm of the cable company and set out to rebuild his family name. He used the cash flows from his growing cable company to purchase other remote cable companies, resulting in a profitable conglomerate. By the 1980s, McCaw Cablevision was the 20th largest cable carrier in the United States.
When the FCC held a lottery for cellular licenses in the early 1980s, many

The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest navy in the world, with a battle fleet tonnage that is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S. Navy also has the world's largest carrier fleet, with 11 in service, one under construction (two planned), and one in reserve. The service has 321,053 personnel on active duty and 106,188 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 286 ships in active service and more than 3,700 aircraft.
The Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was essentially disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. The United States Constitution provided the legal basis for a military force by giving Congress the power "to provide and maintain a navy".
Depredations against U.S. shipping by Barbary Coast pirates in the Mediterranean Sea spurred Congress to employ this power by passing the Naval Act of 1794 ordering the construction and manning of six frigates. These ships were used to end most pirate activity off the Barbary Coast. In the 20th

Hezekiah Frith, Sr. (1763–1848) was an 18th-century British ship owner with the reputation of a "gentleman privateer", who engaged in piracy during the 1790s. One of the richest men in Bermuda during the late 18th and early 19th century, he built the Spithead House in Warwick, Bermuda.
He was married three times, his daughters all marrying Presbyterian ministers; his son Hezekiah Frith, Jr. became a prominent religious figure. Heather Nova, a popular Bermudian singer and songwriter with Lillith Fair, is a descendent of Frith.
Born in Bermuda, he was one of seven children born to Captain William Frith and Sarah Lee. As a successful shipowner during the 1780s and 90s, he became engaged in privateering and smuggling, from which he reportedly made his fortune. He often mixed slaves and free men in his crews. In August 1796 he slipped into the French port of Cap Français at San Domingo during the night and stole away a captured British transport ship.
His colourful piratical career may very likely be exaggerated. Participating in a number of privateering expeditions with the Royal Navy, he is supposed to have hoarded treasure from at least two captured ships in the store he operated

Charles Vane (c.1680 – March 29, 1721) was an English pirate who preyed upon English and French shipping. His pirate career lasted from 1716 – 1719. His flagship was a brigantine named the Ranger. Vane was among the pirate captains who operated out of the notorious base at New Providence in the Bahamas after the British abandoned the colony during the War of Spanish Succession. After a relatively long and violent career in piracy he was captured and in 1721 was executed by hanging at Gallows Point, Port Royal, Jamaica.
Charles Vane's history is not well documented, but he most likely started his career aboard one of Lord Archibald Hamilton's privateers. He turned to piracy in 1716 while raiding Spanish salvage ships, sent to retrieve silver from the sunken Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Florida. Vane successfully raided the Spanish ships and landed crews, stealing a great deal of goods and riches.
Vane was infamous for his cruelty toward the crews of captured vessels. After his first act as a pirate he was reported to the governor of Bermuda for torturing men on rival vessels while on a salvage mission. He also showed scant respect for the pirate code, cheating his own

Edward England, born Edward Seegar in Ireland, was a famous African coast and Indian Ocean pirate captain from 1717 to 1720. The ships he sailed on included the Pearl (which he renamed The Royal James) and later the Fancy, for which England exchanged the Pearl in 1720. His flag was the classic Jolly Roger with a skull above two crossed thigh bones on a black background.
Born in Ireland, England made his way to Jamaica and became a mate on a sloop. He was captured by the pirate captain Christopher Winter and forced to join the crew. Winter most likely took England to the pirate base on Nassau, Bahamas, for England is next reported as Charles Vane's quartermaster, in March, 1718. Vane's sloop, the Lark was captured by the Royal Navy, but England and the rest of the crew were released to induce the other pirates of Nassau to accept the King's pardon.
Vane granted England command of a captured vessel in mid-1718. England made for the west coast of Africa, where he plundered large numbers of slave ships. He and his crew stayed for some time in an African town, but a conflict arose over the pirates' treatment of the local women. Fighting broke out, the pirates burned the town, and set

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale ("National Navy") and often called La Royale, is the maritime arm of the French military. Tracing its roots back from 1624 it is one of the world's oldest naval forces and historically played a key part in establishing the French colonial empire. Its roles include the protection of French interests abroad and the maintenance of global stability.
The Marine nationale consists of five branches, the Force d'Action Navale, the Forces Sous-marines, the Aeronavale, the Fusiliers Marins (including Commandos de Marine) and the Gendarmerie maritime.
As a blue-water navy the Marine nationale operates a wide range of fighting vessels, including a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, nuclear-powered submarines, frigates, patrol boats and support ships.
Its motto is Honneur, Patrie, Valeur, Discipline ("Honour, Fatherland, Valour, Discipline") and these words are found on the deck of every ship in the fleet.
The French Navy is affectionately known as La Royale ("the Royal"). The reason is not well known; some theorise that it is for its traditional attachment to the French monarchy, some others said that before being named "nationale" the Navy had

Captain Howell Davis (or Hywel) (or Davies) (ca. 1690 – June 19, 1719) was a Welsh pirate. His piratical career lasted just 11 months, from July 11, 1718 to June 19, 1719, when he was ambushed and killed. His ships were the Cadogan, Buck, Saint James, and Rover. Davis captured 15 known English and French ships.
Born in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Davis started out in piracy on July 11, 1718 when the slave ship Cadogan, on which he was serving as a mate, was captured by the pirate Edward England. Deciding to join the pirates, Davis was given command of the Cadogan and set out for Brazil on July 18, 1718. However, his crew mutinied and sailed to Barbados instead. Here Davis was imprisoned on the charge of piracy, but was eventually released and sought shelter in the pirate den of New Providence in the Bahamas. With New Providence being cleaned out by Governor Woodes Rogers, Davis left on the sloop Buck and conspired with six other crew members, who included Thomas Anstis and Walter Kennedy, to take over the vessel off Martinique. Davis was elected captain and conducted raids from his base at Coxon's Hole.
Subsequently, he crossed the Atlantic to terrorize shipping in the

John Gow (c. 1698–11 June 1725) was a notorious pirate whose short career was immortalized by Charles Johnson in A General History of the Pyrates. Little is known of his life, except from an account by Daniel Defoe, which is often considered unreliable, the report on his execution, and an account by Mr. Alan Fea, descendant of his captor, published in 1912, almost two centuries after his death.
Gow was probably born in Wick, Caithness, to William Gow, a merchant, and Margaret Calder. He was raised in Stromness, Orkney where he went to school and learned to sail a ship.
Prior to August 1724 he crewed a voyage from London to Lisbon and back, during which he plotted to seize control of the vessel. He failed to attract sufficient numbers, however, and the effort went nowhere. In London, word spread about the attempt, so Gow fled to Amsterdam, where he joined the Santa Cruz-bound Caroline as second mate.
After several months layover in Santa Cruz, on November 3, 1724 the Caroline departed for Genoa, Italy, with a cargo of beeswax, leather, and woolens. The shipboard climate, however, was troubled. There were complaints about the food on board the ship, and Freneau, the captain of the

Lionel Wafer (1640–1705) was a Welsh explorer, buccaneer and privateer.
A ship's surgeon, Wafer made several voyages to the South Seas and visited the Malay archipelago in 1676. The following year he settled in Jamaica to practise his profession. In 1679, however, two noted buccaneers named Cook and Linen convinced him to become a surgeon for their fleet.
In 1680, Wafer met William Dampier at Cartagena and joined in a privateering venture under the leadership of Bartholomew Sharp.
After a quarrel during an arduous overland journey, Wafer was marooned with four others in the Isthmus of Darien, where he stayed with the Cuna Indians. He spent his time gathering information about their culture, including their shamanism and a short vocabulary of their language. He also studied the natural history of the isthmus. The following year later, Wafer left the Indians, promising to return and marry the chief's sister and bring back dogs from England. He fooled the buccaneers at first as he was dressed as an Indian, wearing body-paint and ornamented with a nose-ring. It took them some time to recognise him.
Wafer reunited with Dampier, and after privateering with him on the Spanish Main until

Cheung Po Tsai (simplified Chinese: 张保仔; traditional Chinese: 張保仔; pinyin: Zhāng Bǎozǎi; Wade–Giles: Chang Pao Tsai; Cantonese Yale: Jēung Bóu Jái; 1783 – 1822) was a 19th century Chinese pirate. He was also known as Cheung Po/Chang Pao/Zhang Bao ("Cheung Po Tsai" literally means "Cheung Po the Kid").
Several places in Hong Kong are linked to Cheung Po Tsai:
A famous pirate in Hong Kong, he was a son of a Tanka fisherman who lived in Xinhui of Jiangmen but was kidnapped by the pirate Cheng I and his wife Ching Shih when he was 15. He was adopted by the kidnappers as their son. Cheung Po later took over the pirating business from his adopted parents.
Cheung Po Tsai was active along the Guangdong coastal area during the Qing Dynasty. His followers are said to have reached 50,000+ and his fleet said to have possessed 600 ships. His piracy mate was Cai Qian and the two worked together until Cai Qian was destroyed by the Qing government, making Cheung decide to surrender. Cheung Po capitulated to the Chinese government in 1810 and became a captain in the Qing imperial navy, receiving the rank of navy colonel and an appointment in Penghu, far away from Hong Kong. He spent rest of his

Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery (2 August 1866 – 4 December 1934) was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–99.
Born in Hasselt, Belgium, de Gerlache was educated in Brussels. He studied Engineering at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel), and spent his holidays as a cabin boy on board transatlantic ocean liners. After graduating in 1885, he joined the Belgian Navy on 19 January 1886.
After graduating from the nautical college of Ostend as first lieutenant, he was assigned to the Belgica, a hydrography ship. It was while serving there that he came up with his plan to explore Antarctica.
In 1896, de Gerlache purchased the Norwegian-built whaling ship Patria, which, following an extensive refit, he renamed as the Belgica. With a multinational crew, which included Roald Amundsen, Frederick Cook, Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski, Henryk Arctowski and Emil Racoviţă, he set sail from Antwerp on 16 August 1897.
During January 1898, the Belgica reached the coast of Graham Land. Sailing in between the Graham Land coast and a long string of islands to

Jean Ango (or Jehan Angot) (1480–1551) was a French ship-owner who provided ships to Francis I for exploration of the globe. A native of Dieppe, Ango took over his father's import-export business, and ventured into the spice trade with Africa and India. He was one of the first French to challenge the monopoly of Spain and Portugal, in addition to trading with the eastern Mediterranean, the British Isles, and the Low Countries. He also helped to finance the voyages of Giovanni da Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier.
His father (also named Jean Ango) sent two ships to Newfoundland in an early colonization attempt, including Thomas Aubert as captain of the Pensée. Their arrival in 1508 is the second recorded voyage of a French ship to the Grand Banks after the expedition of John Cabot. After his father's death (probably in the final years of the reign of King Louis XII), the younger Jean Ango stopped any personal participation in trading voyages and settled in Dieppe with his inherited fortune.
He eventually controlled a fleet, partially or alone, of 70 ships, including merchant ships and fishing vessels. Although he funded expeditions for trade and exploration, and used his ships

The Société Nautique de Genève is a yacht club based in Geneva (Switzerland). It was founded in 1872 with the goal of developing nautical sports and high level sailors. Currently the club has about 3000 members.
The club held the America's Cup from 2003 until 2010, staging one successful defense in 2007 with its Alinghi syndicate.
The club is very active in yacht racing and high-performance catamarans have been developed specifically for the lake. The design of Alinghi 5, the defender of the 2010 America's Cup, was influenced by those racing catamarans. The best-known event, the "Bol d'Or" (not to be confused with other events having the same name) runs from Geneva to the end of the lake and back.
America's Cup Management announced on 5 July 2007 that the protocol for the 2010 America's Cup had been agreed between the defending yacht club, the Société Nautique de Genève of Switzerland and Challenger of Record, Club Náutico Español de Vela of Spain. However this arrangement did not survive a legal challenge from BMW Oracle Racing, who successfully argued that Club Náutico Español de Vela was not a valid Challenger of Record due to non-compliance with the terms of the America's Cup

Transocean Ltd. is one of the world's largest offshore drilling contractors. The company rents floating mobile drill rigs, along with the equipment and personnel for operations, to oil and gas companies at an average daily rate of US$282,700 (2010). Transocean's day rates extend as high as US$650,000 for its deep-water drillships, which house dual activity derricks and can drill in ultra-deep ocean depths of 10,000 ft (3,000 m). Recently, Transocean has been implicated in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill resulting from the explosion of one of its oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Transocean employs more than 18,000 people worldwide and has a fleet of 135 offshore drilling units and two ultra-deepwater units under construction, as of December 2011. The company is based in Vernier, Switzerland, near Geneva, and has offices in 20 countries, including Switzerland, the United States, Norway, Scotland, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia. The firm owns nearly half of the 50 or so deepwater platforms in the world.
Transocean traces its roots back to 1953, when the Birmingham, Alabama-based Southern Natural Gas Company created The Offshore Company after acquiring the joint drilling operation

Captain Benjamin Hornigold (died 1719) was an 18th-century English pirate. His career lasted from 1715 to 1718, after which he turned pirate hunter and pursued his former allies on behalf of the Governor of the Bahamas. He was killed when his ship was wrecked on a reef during the 1719 hurricane season.
Hornigold's early life is unrecorded, though it is possible he was born in Norfolk, England, and, if so, he might have first served at sea aboard ships whose home port was either King's Lynn or Great Yarmouth. His first documented acts of piracy were in the winter of 1713-1714, when he employed periaguas (sailing canoes) and a sloop to menace merchant vessels off the coast of New Providence and its capital Nassau. By 1717 Hornigold had at his command a thirty-gun sloop he named the Ranger, which was likely the most heavily armed ship in the region and allowed him to seize other vessels with impunity.
His second-in-command during this period was Edward Teach, who would later be better known as the pirate Blackbeard. When Hornigold took command of the Ranger he delegated the captaincy of his earlier sloop to Teach. In the spring of 1717 the two pirate captains seized three merchant

Stepan (Sten'ka) Timofeyevich Razin (Russian: Степан (Стенька) Тимофеевич Разин, Russian pronunciation: [sʲtʲɪpˈɑn (sʲtʲˈenʲkə) tʲɪmɐˈfʲeɪvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈrɑzʲɪn]; 1630 – June 16 [O.S. June 6] 1671) was a Cossack leader who led a major uprising against the nobility and Tsar's bureaucracy in South Russia.
He is first noted by history in 1661, as part of a diplomatic mission from the Don Cossacks to the Kalmyks. That same year Razin went on a long-distance pilgrimage to the great Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea for the benefit of his soul. After that, all trace of him is lost for six years, when he reappears as the leader of a robber community established at Panshinskoye, among the marshes between the rivers Tishina and Ilovlya, from whence he levied tribute from all vessels passing up and down the Volga.
A long war with Poland in 1654-1667 and Sweden in 1656-1658 put heavy demands upon the people of Russia. Taxes increased as did conscription. Many peasants hoping to escape these burdens fled south and joined bands of Razin's marauding Cossacks. They were also joined by many others who were disaffected with the Russian government, including people of the lower classes as well as

The Marine ( listen (help·info)) is the navy of Germany and is part of the unified Bundeswehr (the German Armed Forces). It is deeply integrated into the NATO alliance. Its mission is protection of German and Allied territories as well as peace-keeping and peace enforcement operations.
The Marine traces its roots back to the Reichsflotte (Empire Fleet) of the revolutionary era of 1848 – 52. The Reichsflotte was the first German Navy to sail under the black-red-gold flag. Founded on 14 June 1848 by the orders of the democratically elected Frankfurt Parliament the Reichsflottes brief existence ended with the failure of the revolution and was disbanded on 2 April 1852; thus, the modern Marine celebrates its birthday on 14 June.
From 1945 to 1956, the German Mine Sweeping Administration and its successor organizations, made up of former members of the Kriegsmarine, became something of a transition stage for the Marine, allowing the future Marine to draw on experienced personnel upon its formation. In 1956, with West Germany's accession to NATO, the Marine was formally established. With the reunification of Germany in 1990 the Marine took over the former East German Volksmarine

John McCaw, Jr. (c. 1951) is a businessman who formerly owned McCaw Cellular in Seattle, Washington and a former part-owner of the Vancouver Canucks NHL franchise, with Francesco Aquilini. On November 8, 2006, his 50% interest was sold to Aquilini, who became the sole owner.

SF Line was the name of the Finnish shipping company now known as Viking Line. The company, originally named Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, was one of three shipping companies that formed shipping marketing company Viking Line in 1966, the other two being Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and Rederi AB Slite. After the other companies left Viking Line in 1988 and 1993 respectively, SF Line stood as the sole owner of Viking Line. As a result, SF Line changed its name to Viking Line in 1995.
Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen (later Rederi Ab Solstad and merged into Rederi Ab Sally in 1970) was founded in 1959 and started ferry operations between Gräddö (Sweden) and Korpo (Finland). After a disagreement between the founders, a group of men led by Gunnar Eklund left Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and started a new company, Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan. The new company purchased the steamer Brittany, renamed her Ålandsfärjan and started operations between Kapellskär (Sweden) and Mariehamn (Åland) in direct competition with Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen.
In 1966, Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and Rederi AB Slite joined forces and founded the marketing company Viking Line in order to compete with Silja Line. During the

Henry Jennings (died 1745) was an 18th century British privateer who served primarily during the War of Spanish Succession and later served as leader of the pirate haven of New Providence.
Although little is known of Jennings' early life, he was first recorded as a privateer during the War of the Spanish Succession operating from Jamaica, then governed by Lord Archibald Hamilton. There is evidence that Jennings owned enough land in Jamaica to live comfortably, thus leaving his motivations for piracy to conjecture.
His first recorded act of piracy took place in early 1716 when, with three vessels and 150-300 men, Jennings' fleet ambushed the Spanish salvage camp from the 1715 Treasure Fleet. After forcing the retreat of around 40 soldiers, Jennings set sail for Jamaica carrying back an estimated 350,000 pesos.
While en route to Jamaica, Jennings encountered another Spanish ship and captured another 60,000 pesos.
When Jennings encountered Sam Bellamy, he teamed with him to commit more piracies against the French. When Bellamy double-crossed him, Jennings' ruthlessness was evidenced in the brutal slaying of more than 20 Frenchmen and Englishmen, and the burning of an innocent

Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, commonly known as Murat Reis the younger (circa 1570 - post 1641?) was the first President and Grand Admiral of the Corsair Republic of Salé, Governor of Oualidia, and a Dutch pirate, one of the most notorious of the Barbary pirates from the 17th century; the most famous of the "Salé Rovers".
Jan Janszoon was born in Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands in 1575. Little is known of his early life, except that he married young and had a child, Lysbeth Janszoon.
In 1600, Jan Janszoon began as a Dutch privateer sailing from his home port, Haarlem, working for the state with letters of marque to harass Spanish shipping during the Eighty Years' War. Working from the Netherlands was insufficiently profitable, so Janszoon overstepped the boundaries of his letters and found his way to the semi-independent port states of the Barbary Coast of north Africa, whence he could attack ships of every foreign state: when he attacked a Spanish ship, he flew the Dutch flag; when he attacked any other, he became an Ottoman Captain and flew the red half-moon of the Turks or the flag of any of various other Mediterranean principalities. During this period he had abandoned his

Paul Gardner Allen (born January 21, 1953) is an American investor and philanthropist best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation along with Bill Gates, a leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. He is also the 48th richest person in the world along with Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco (and family) who ranks the same with an estimated wealth of $14.2 billion as of March 2012.. He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which manages his business and philanthropic efforts. Allen also has a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio which includes technology companies, real estate holdings, and stakes in other technology, media, and content companies. Allen also owns two professional sports teams, the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL), and the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is also part-owner of the Seattle Sounders FC, which joined Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2009. Allen's memoir Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft was released on April 19, 2011.
Paul Allen was born in Seattle, Washington, to parents Kenneth Samuel Allen, an associate director of the University of

William Dampier (5 September 1651 - 8 March 1715) was the first Englishman to explore parts of New Holland (Australia) and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. Dampier has been described as the first natural historian of Australia and the greatest explorer-adventurer between Sir Walter Raleigh and Captain Cook.
After impressing the Admiralty with his book 'New Voyage Round the World', Dampier was given command of a 26-gunner and made valuable discoveries in Western New Holland, but was court-martialled for cruelty.
On a later voyage, he was able to rescue Alexander Selkirk, who was Daniel Defoe's inspiration for Robinson Crusoe. Others influenced by Dampier include Captain Cook, Lord Nelson and Charles Darwin.
Born in East Coker, Somerset and educated at King's School, Bruton, Dampier sailed on two merchant voyages to Newfoundland and Java, before joining the Royal Navy in 1673, taking part in the two battles of Schooneveld in June of that year. His service was cut short by a catastrophic illness, and he returned to England for several months of recuperation. For the next several years he tried his hand at various careers, including plantation managing (in

Oracle Racing is an American sailboat racing syndicate initially formed to compete for the 2003 America’s Cup. They competed again in the 2007 event before winning the 33rd America's Cup regatta in 2010 - representing the Golden Gate Yacht Club.
The syndicate was initially named simply Oracle for the 2003 campaign and backed primarily by Larry Ellison, the wealthy co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, but was renamed in August 2004 to Oracle BMW Racing to reflect the German company's role, and subsequently revised again to BMW Oracle Racing to reflect increased involvement from BMW. At the end of December 2010, it was announced that BMW was bringing to a close its longstanding partnership with ORACLE Racing and thereby ending its involvement in the America's Cup; this was by mutual agreement of both partners.
The team was created by purchasing the assets of Paul Cayard’s AmericaOne syndicate which was the losing finalist against Luna Rossa in the 2000 Louis Vuitton Cup. The syndicate got off to a rocky start with changes in the skipper position, alternating between Cayard and Chris Dickson, to Dickson alone, to Peter Holmberg and then back to Dickson. Oracle reached the finals

Juan de la Cosa (c.1460-1509) was a Spanish cartographer, conquistador and explorer. He made the earliest extant European world map to incorporate the territories of the Americas that were discovered in the 15th century, sailed with Christopher Columbus on his first three voyages, and was the owner/captain of the Santa María.
According to some historians he was born in 1460 at Sta. Maria del Puerto (Santoña), in Cantabria, Spain. From early childhood he spent time on the water. From the waters of his native country, which he knew thoroughly, he soon ventured on to the coast of Western Africa, which was at that time the goal of many Spanish expeditions. The first reliable references place him in Portugal in 1488, meeting the explorer Bartolomeu Dias who had just sailed around the Cape of Good Hope.
Juan de la Cosa sailed with Christopher Columbus on his first three voyages to the New World. He owned and was master of the Santa María, flagship of Columbus's first voyage in 1492. The vessel shipwrecked that year on the night of December 24-25 off the present-day site of Cap-Haïtien, Haiti.
On Columbus's second voyage, in 1493, de la Cosa was mariner and cartographer on the ship

Zheng Jing (Chinese: 鄭經; pinyin: Zhèng Jīng; Wade–Giles: Cheng Ching; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Teⁿ Keng) was a seventeenth century Chinese warlord and Ming Dynasty loyalist. He was the eldest son of Koxinga and grandson of pirate-merchant Zheng Zhilong. After the conquest of Taiwan in 1662 by his father, Zheng Jing controlled the military forces in Xiamen and Quemoy on his father's behalf. Upon the death of his father six months later, Zheng Jing contested throne as the King of Taiwan with his uncle, Zheng Shixi. The dispute was resolved in Zheng Jing's favor after he successfully landed an army in Taiwan despite strong opposition by the forces of his uncle. This was followed by Zheng Shixi withdrawing his claim.
With both the vast pirate fleet and the throne of Tainan, he intended to continue his father's plans to invade the Philippines; however, he was forced to abandon this venture when faced with the threat of a Manchu-Dutch alliance. His victory over a combined Manchu-Dutch fleet in 1664 resulted in ending the brief alliance.
For the next 19 years, he tried to provide sufficiently for the local inhabitants and reorganizing their military forces in Taiwan. He frequently exchanged

Edward Teach (c. 1680 – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. Although little is known about his early life, he was likely born in Bristol, England. He may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before settling on the Caribbean island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined sometime around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but toward the end of 1717 Hornigold retired from piracy, taking two vessels with him.
Teach captured a French merchant vessel, renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, and equipped her with 40 guns. He became a renowned pirate, his cognomen derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charleston, South Carolina. After successfully

The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is an organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education. Founded by folk singer Pete Seeger with his wife Toshi Seeger in 1966, the organization is known for its sailing vessel, the sloop Clearwater, and for its annual music and environmental festival, the Great Hudson River Revival.
In 1969, the Clearwater made her maiden voyage down the Atlantic Coast from the Harvey Gamage Shipyard in Maine to the South Street Seaport in New York City. Folk musician Tom Winslow wrote a folk music song, "Hey Looka Yonder (It's the Clearwater)", in which the lyrics specifically mention the fundraising efforts for the sloop, and how "black and white" people got together for this program.
Based for many years in Poughkeepsie, New York, the Clearwater moved to Beacon, New York in 2009.
Clearwater has gained national recognition for its activism starting in the 1970s to force a clean-up of PCB contamination of the Hudson River caused by industrial manufacturing by General Electric and other companies on the river's edge. Other specific Hudson watershed issues

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (French: [ʒak iv kusto]; commonly known in English as Jacques Cousteau; 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. He was also known as "le Commandant Cousteau" or "Captain Cousteau".
Cousteau was born on 11 June 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, France to Daniel and Élisabeth Cousteau. He had one brother, Pierre-Antoine. Cousteau completed his preparatory studies at the prestigious Collège Stanislas in Paris. In 1930, he entered the École Navale and graduated as a gunnery officer. After an automobile accident cut short his career in naval aviation, Cousteau indulged his interest in the sea.
In Toulon, where he was serving on the Condorcet, Cousteau carried out his first underwater experiments, thanks to his friend Philippe Tailliez who in 1936 lent him some Fernez underwater goggles, predecessors of modern swimming goggles. Cousteau also belonged to the information service of the French

The pirate Nicholas van Hoorn (c. 1635 – buried 24 June 1683, Isla Mujeres) was born in Holland and died near Vera Cruz, Mexico. Nikolaas or Klaas was engaged in the Dutch merchant service from about 1655 until 1659, and then bought a vessel with his savings. With a band of reckless men whom he had enlisted, he became a terror to the commerce of the Netherlands. Later he had several ships in his employment and obtained such notoriety that some governments were willing to employ him against their enemies.
In 1666 a French minister sent Van Hoorn a commission, empowering him to pursue and capture Spanish vessels. As he was uniformly successful, he amassed enormous sums. After the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), it was expected that he would cease ravaging the American coast - but the French government, while openly disowning their champion, secretly connived at his misdeeds. He made the mistake of pillaging a French ship, but after an unsuccessful attempt to take him was made in 1663, he no longer attacked the French flag.
Learning that several Spanish galleons were waiting in the harbour of Puerto Rico for a convoy, he entered the harbour and offered his services to the governor.

Ocean Village was a British-American owned cruise line, based in Southampton, England. Designed to offer an alternative cruise experience, Ocean Village was founded by P&O Princess Cruises, which later merged with Carnival Corporation to form Carnival Corporation & plc. Ocean Village operated from 2003, until 2010 when the brand was discontinued, with the cruise ship Ocean Village transferring to P&O Cruises Australia.
Ocean Village was formed in 2003 as a sister company to P&O Cruises, providing an alternative cruise experience, targeting families and those looking for casual dress codes and fun events as opposed to formal dining. The target audience was 30 to 50 years old and with the cruise concept of freedom and flexibility on board with regard to food, clothing, and entertainment. A secondary target was families, with extensive family facilities. The company's slogan was "the Cruise for people who don't do cruises" and the company extended this policy over both of its ships. It had a fleet of two ships which sail Western and Eastern Mediterranean in the summer and the Caribbean and Mexico in the winter.
The company's first ship, Ocean Village, was transferred from P&O Cruises

Wang Zhi (Chinese: 汪直 or 王直) was a Chinese pirate and trader of the 16th century, one of the chief named and known figures among the wokou ("Japanese" pirates) prevalent at the time. It is said he was aboard the Portuguese ship of Fernão Mendes Pinto when it landed on Tanegashima, off the coast of Japan in 1543, marking the first contact between Europe and Japan.
By the 1550s, Wang had organised a large trading consortium and commanded a well-armed fleet with sailors and soldiers to protect it. Between 1539 and 1552 he cooperated with local military intendants on several occasions, expecting relaxation of the Chinese ban on overseas trade. When the ban was instead tightened in 1551, Wang began organising large attacks on official establishments, granaries, county and district treasuries along the Chinese coast, and on the surrounding countryside, which was thoroughly pillaged. Brigandage along the coast of Zhejiang became so widespread and common that towns and villages had to erect palisades for security.
In the spring of 1552 raiding parties of several hundred people attacked all along the coast of Zhejiang. In the summer of 1553 Wang Zhi assembled a large fleet of hundreds of

William Wright (fl. 1675-1682) was an English privateer in French service and later buccaneer who raided Spanish towns in the late 17th century.
Little is known of William Wright before he settled in French Hispaniola in the mid 1670s. Accepting a French commission of war from the French Governor in 1675 he later raided the Spanish colony of Segovia (present day Nicaragua) with several other privateers.
Sailing to the San Blas Islands in 1679 he recruited several sailors before traveling to the Mosquito Coast encountering an old friend John Gret. Returning to the San Blas Islands, Gret negotiated on Wright's behalf to form an alliance with the local natives. However despite this alliance the privateers, led by Jean Bernanos, were defeated after an attempted attack on the Spanish town of Chepo several weeks later.
Soon after the raid Wright left Petit Goâve with Captain Thomas Paine sailing the Spanish Main from Cartagena to Caracas capturing a ship escorted by the Spanish Armada de Barlovento.
In May 1680, while at Isla Blanca, Wright and Paine joined French buccaneer Captain Michel de Grammont later capturing La Guayra seaport in Caracas before being driven off by the Spanish

Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. (Hebrew: צים‎), formerly ZIM Israel Navigation Company Ltd. and Zim American Israeli Shipping Inc., is the biggest cargo shipping company in Israel, and 10th largest in the world. The company's headquarters are in Haifa; it also has a North American headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia.
ZIM was founded in 1945, by the Jewish Agency and the Histadrut (General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel). The first ship was purchased in partnership with Harris and Dixon (based in London) in 1947. This vessel was refurbished, renamed SS Kedmah, and sailed to the future state of Israel in the summer of 1947. During her first years, her main task was transporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the emerging state. Some of the other ships that had been used for clandestine immigration before the establishment of Israel as a state were confiscated by the British mandate authorities and later joined the company's fleet. The company continued to purchase more ships, among them SS Negba, SS Artza and SS Galila.
During the 1948 war, the company was the sole maritime connection with the state of Israel, supplying food, freight and military equipment.

Amoco Corporation, originally Standard Oil Company (Indiana), was a global chemical and oil company that was founded in 1889 around a refinery located in Whiting, Indiana, United States.
It later absorbed the American Oil Company, founded in Baltimore in 1910 and incorporated in 1922 by Louis Blaustein and his son Jacob. Amoco merged with BP in December 1998 forming BP Amoco, later renamed to BP, though the Amoco name continued at most stations until 2002.
The firm's innovations included two essential parts of the modern industry, the gasoline tanker truck and the drive-through filling station. Its headquarters were located in the Amoco Building (now the Aon Center) in Chicago, Illinois.
Standard Oil (Indiana) was formed in 1889 by John D. Rockefeller as part of the Standard Oil trust. In 1910, with the rise in popularity of the automobile, Indiana Standard decided to specialize in providing gasoline to consumers. In 1911, the year it became independent from the Standard Oil trust, the company sold 88% of the gasoline and kerosene sold in the Midwest. In 1912 it opened its first gas service station in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
When the Standard Oil Trust was broken up in 1911,

Hendrik Brouwer (spring 1581 – August 7, 1643) was a Dutch explorer, admiral, and colonial administrator both in Japan and the Dutch East Indies.
He is thought to first have sailed to the East Indies for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606. In 1610 he left again to the Indies, now as commander of three ships. On this trip he devised the Brouwer Route, a route from South Africa to Java that reduced voyage duration from a year to about 6 months by taking advantage of the strong westerly winds in the Roaring Forties (the latitudes between 40° and 50° south). Up to that point, the Dutch had followed a route copied from the Portuguese via the coast of Africa, Mauritius and Ceylon. By 1617, the VOC required all their ships to take the Brouwer route.
After his arrival in 1611 in the East Indies, he was sent to Japan to replace Jacques Specx temporarily as opperhoofd at Dejima from August 28, 1612 to August 6, 1614. During that time he made a visit to the Japanese court at Edo. In 1613 he made a trip to Siam that laid the foundation for the Dutch trade with Siam.
Early in 1632, he was part of a delegation sent to London to solve trade disagreements between the English and Dutch East

Sealink was a ferry company based in the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1984, operating services to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Channel Islands, Isle of Wight and Ireland.
Ports served by the company included: Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven, Southampton and Harwich for services to the European continent; Holyhead, Fishguard, Heysham and Stranraer for services to Ireland and the Isle of Man; services to the Channel Islands from Weymouth & Portsmouth. The Isle of Wight was also served from Portsmouth and Lymington.
Sealink also operated the "Steamer" Passenger Ferry services on Windermere in Cumbria until privatisation when these were passed to the newly reformed Windermere Iron Steamboat Company (now Windermere Lake Cruises Ltd).
Sealink was originally the brand name for the ferry services of British Rail which ran shipping services in the UK and Ireland. Services to France, Belgium and the Netherlands were also run by Sealink UK as part of the Sealink consortium which also used ferries owned by French national railways, the SNCF, the Belgian Maritime Transport Authority, Regie voor Maritiem Transport / Regie des transports maritimes (RMT/RTM) and the Dutch Stoomvaart Maatschappij

Exxon is a gas station as well as a brand of motor fuel and related products by ExxonMobil. In the early 21st century, Exxon's headquarters was located in Darien, Connecticut. From 1972 to 1999, Exxon was the corporate name of the company previously known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey or Jersey Standard.
Exxon formally replaced the Esso, Enco, and Humble brands in the United States on January 1, 1973. The Esso name was a trademark of Jersey Standard Oil, and attracted protests from other Standard Oil spinoffs because of its similarity to the name of the parent company, Standard Oil. As a result, Jersey Standard was restricted from using Esso in the U.S., except in those states awarded to it in the 1911 Standard Oil antitrust settlement.
In states where it was restricted from using the Esso name, the company marketed under the Humble or Enco brands. The Humble brand was used at Texas stations for decades, as those operations were under the direction of Jersey Standard affiliate Humble Oil & Refining Company. In the middle to late 1950s, use of the Humble brand spread to other southwestern states, including Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
In 1959, Jersey Standard gained

John Hay Whitney (17 August 1904 – 8 February 1982), colloquially known as "Jock" Whitney, was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and a member of the Whitney family.
Born on August 17, 1904, in Ellsworth, Maine, Whitney was a descendant of John Whitney, a Puritan who settled in Massachusetts in 1635, as well as of William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower. His father was Payne Whitney, and his grandfathers were William C. Whitney and John Hay, both presidential cabinet members. His mother was Helen Hay Whitney.
The Payne Whitneys lived around the corner from James B. Duke, and his wife and daughter Doris. Whitney's uncle, Oliver Hazard Payne, a business partner of John D. Rockefeller, arranged the buyout of Duke's competitors to create the American Tobacco Co.
"Jock" Whitney attended Yale College. He joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter), as his father had. Whitney, his father, grandfather, and great-uncle were oarsmen at Yale, and his father was captain of the crew in 1898. He was a member of Scroll and Key. While at Yale, he allegedly coined the term "crew cut" for the haircut that now bears the name.
After

The Kingdom of Portugal (Portuguese: Reino de Portugal, Latin: Regnum Portugalliae), or the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves (Portuguese: Reino de Portugal e dos Algarves, Latin: Regnum Portugalliae et Algarbia), was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910. It was replaced by the Portuguese First Republic after the 5 October 1910 revolution.
The Kingdom of Portugal finds its origins in the County of Portugal (1093–1139). The Portuguese County was a semi-autonomous county of the Kingdom of Leon. Independence from Leon took place in three stages:
Once Portugal was independent, D. Afonso I's descendants, members of the Portuguese House of Burgundy, would rule Portugal until 1383. Even after the change in royal houses, all the monarchs of Portugal were descended from Afonso I, one way or another, through both legitimate and illegitimate links.
With the turn of the 19th to 20th century, republicanism would grow in numbers and support in Lisbon among progressive politicians and the influential press. However a minority with regard to the rest of the country, this height of

Pieter Pietersen Heyn (25 November 1577 – 18 June 1629) was a Dutch naval officer and folk hero during the Eighty Years' War between the United Provinces and Spain.
Hein was born in Delfshaven (now part of Rotterdam), the son of a sea captain, and he became a sailor while he was still a teenager. In his twenties, he was captured by the Spanish, and served as a galley slave for about four years, probably between 1598 and 1602, when he was traded for Spanish prisoners. Between 1603 and 1607 he was again held captive by the Spanish, when captured near Cuba.
In 1607, he joined the Dutch East India Company and left for Asia, returning with the rank of captain (of the Hollandia) five years later. He married Anneke Claesdochter de Reus and settled in Rotterdam. In 1618, when he was captain of the Neptunus, both he and his ship were pressed into service by Venice. In 1621 he left his vessel behind and traveled overland to the Netherlands. For a year in 1622 he was a member of the local government of Rotterdam, although he didn't even have citizenship of this city: the cousin of his wife, one of the three burgomasters, made this possible.
In 1623, he became vice-admiral of the new Dutch

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces. Originally intended for local defence, the navy was granted the title of 'Royal Australian Navy' in 1911, and became increasingly responsible for defence of the region.
Britain's Royal Navy continued to support the RAN and provide additional blue-water defence capability in the Pacific up to the early years of World War II. Then, rapid wartime expansion saw the acquisition of large surface vessels and the building of many smaller warships. In the decade following the war, the RAN acquired a small number of aircraft carriers, the last of these paying off in 1982.
Today, the RAN consists of 54 commissioned vessels and over 16,000 personnel. The navy is one of the largest and most sophisticated naval forces in the Pacific region, with a significant presence in the Indian Ocean and worldwide operations in support of military campaigns and peacekeeping missions. The current Chief of Navy is Vice Admiral Ray Griggs.
The Commonwealth

Alv Erlingsson (Alv Erlingsson den yngre. died 1290) was a Norwegian nobleman, earl of Sarpsborg and governor of Borgarsyssel.
Alv Erlingsson was born at Tanberg in Norderhov, Buskerud. Alv Erlingsson was the son of Erling Alvsson of Tanberg (ca. 1230–1283) and grandson of Alv Erlingsson of Tanberg (ca. 1190 – ca. 1240). Tanberg (Tornberg) was an old manor which was considered to have been among the oldest farms in Norderhov. His grandmother was Ingeborg Baardsdatter of Rein, sister of Duke Skule Bårdsson. Alv Erlingsson was also a second cousin of King Magnus VI of Norway.
With his father’s death in 1283, Alv Erlingsson inherited Sarpsborg and served as governor of Borgarsyssel which today makes up the county of Østfold. Alv Erlingsson had a central role in Norwegian national governance following the death of King Magnus VI in 1280. King Magnus's heir, Eirik Magnusson was a minor and unable to take government control in their own hands. A guardianship board was established which would rule the kingdom on behalf of the king until he was of age. Alv was not included in the formal guardianship government, but had much power as governor of Borgarsyssel.
It is said he was a favorite of

Edward Francis Hutton (September 7, 1875, New York City - July 11, 1962, Westbury, Long Island, New York) was an American financier and co-founder of E. F. Hutton & Co.
Edward Hutton was born to James Laws Hutton, (b. March 31, 1847) who left an Ohio farm to work in New York City. James died on December 14, 1885 at the age of 37 when Hutton was only ten years old, leaving Edward and his two siblings (Grace b. Aug. 25, 1873 and Franklyn Laws b. Dec. 1, 1877, d. Dec. 6, 1940) to be raised by his mother, Frances Elouise Hulse Hutton (b. May 26, 1851 - d. Sept. 12, 1930). As a schoolboy, Hutton attended the New York Latin School before transferring to P.S. 69. During his adolescence, he worked in a gear factory at age fifteen and then two years later in the mailroom of a securities firm. He completed his studies by taking classes at Trinity Chapel High School and Packer's Business College.
He married his first wife Blanche Horton (b. Dec.6 1884) on October 9, 1900. Blanche was the daughter of investment banker Henry Lawrence Horton. They had one son named Halcourt Horton Hutton, who was born in New York City on May 7, 1902. Blanche died on December 18, 1917 in the Spanish Flu influenza

Fridtjof Nansen ( /ˈfrɪd.tjɒf ˈnænsən/ FRID-choff NAN-sən; 10 October 1861 – 13 May 1930) was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a record northern latitude of 86°14′ during his North Pole expedition of 1893–96. Although he retired from exploration after his return to Norway, his techniques of polar travel and his innovations in equipment and clothing influenced a generation of subsequent Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
Nansen studied zoology at the Royal Frederick University, and later worked as a curator at the Bergen Museum where his research on the central nervous system of lower marine creatures earned him a doctorate and helped establish modern theories of neurology. After 1896 his main scientific interest switched to oceanography; in the course of his research he made many scientific cruises, mainly in the North Atlantic, and contributed to the development of modern oceanographic equipment. As one of his country's leading citizens, in 1905 Nansen spoke out

Magnus Heinason (or Mogens Heinesøn) (1545 – 18 January 1589) was a Faroese naval hero, trader and privateer. He was the son of Heine Havreki, a Norwegian priest from Bergen who emigrated to the Faroe Islands and who helped introduce the Lutheran Reformation to the Faroe Islands, and Gyri Arnbjørnsdatter, Havreki's second wife from a powerful and weathly Norwegian clan.
Magnus Heinason was engaged three times and married twice. Magnus had a son with a Faroese lady Kollfina around 1560. Rasmus Magnussen (1560–1670) lived to the age of 110 years old, and at the age of 103 he became the father of a son. In 1580 Magnus met a Norwegian noble lady Margrethe Axeldatter Gyntersberg or von Güntersberg (1565–1589). They had a child Mogensbarn that died as child. They did not marry, because she accused him of rape. The noble family then demanded that he marry Margrethe's younger sister, Sophie Axeldatter Gynhterberg (1566–1607). They married in 1582 in Bergenhus, Bergen and had one daughter, Elsebeth Magnusdatter (1584–1645). She later married Anders Matsen Ǣnes and lived at Ǣnes in the Hardangerfjord in Norway.
Magnus Heinason served William the Silent and his son Maurice of Nassau, Prince

Nathaniel Gordon (c. 1834 – February 21, 1862) was the only American slave trader to be tried, convicted, and executed "for being engaged in the Slave Trade" in accordance with the Piracy Law of 1820.
Gordon was born in Portland, Maine. He loaded 897 slaves aboard his ship Erie at Sharks Point, Congo River, West Africa on August 7, 1860, "of whom only 172 were men and 162 grown women. Gordon was one of those infamous characters who preferred to carry children because they could not rise up to avenge his cruelties."
The Erie was captured by the USS Mohican 50 miles from port on August 8, 1860. After one hung jury and a new trial, Gordon was convicted on November 9, 1861 in the circuit court in New York City and sentenced to death by hanging on February 7, 1862.
President Abraham Lincoln issued a stay of Gordon's execution, setting the new date for February 21, 1862. Lincoln made clear that the respite was only temporary to allow Gordon time for his final preparations. In his Stay of Execution, Lincoln gave him a two-week stay of execution to “[make] the necessary preparation for the awful change which awaits him.” The evening before the execution, Gordon unsuccessfully attempted

P&O Cruises Australia is a British-American owned cruise line with corporate headquarters at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operational headquarters in North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The sister company of P&O Cruises in the United Kingdom, it was previously a constituent of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company and has a direct link in history to the world's first passenger ships. As such, it is one of the oldest cruise lines in the world, and now forms part of the Carnival Corporation & plc, under the executive control of Carnival UK. It currently operates three ships, sailing from various ports in Australia and New Zealand.
P&O Cruises Australia originates from the passenger division of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a UK shipping company which operated the world's first passenger ships in the early 19th Century. P&O subsequently became the first company to operate passenger routes to Australia, with the first of these voyages occurring in 1932. These voyages eventually developed into the cruise holidays we recognise today and so P&O adopted the brand name P&O Cruises, with the specialist Australian service becoming known

The Kriegsmarine (German pronunciation: [ˈkʁiːksmaˌʁiːnə], War Navy) was the name of the German Navy from 1935 to 1945; most of the period of Nazi rule. It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany.
The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly during German naval rearmament in the 1930s (the Treaty of Versailles had limited the size of the German navy previously). In January 1939 Plan Z was ordered, calling for the construction of many naval vessels. The ships of the Kriegsmarine fought during the Spanish Civil War and World War II. The Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine (as for all branches of armed forces during the period of absolute Nazi power) was Adolf Hitler, who exercised his authority through the Oberkommando der Marine.
The Kriegsmarine's most famous ships were the U-boats, most of which were constructed after Plan Z was abandoned at the beginning of World War II. Wolfpacks were rapidly assembled groups of submarines which attacked British convoys during the first half of the Battle of the Atlantic but this tactic was largely abandoned in the

Pierre Le Grand (Fr. = Peter the Great) was a Caribbean buccaneer of the 17th century. He is known to history only from one source, Alexandre Exquemelin's Buccaneers of America, and may be imaginary.
Pierre was born in Dieppe, France. Nothing is known of his life before his arrival in Tortuga at some time in the mid-17th century.
Pierre le Grand is known only for his attack on a Spanish galleon near the coast of Hispaniola in the 17th century. The exact site of the attack is uncertain; Exquemelin at one point says the Caicos Islands were the scene of the crime, and at another point places the attack at Cape Tiburón, off the southwest coast of Hispaniola.
Pierre had recruited a crew of 28 men on a single small boat and sailed in search of Spanish ships to rob. After a long, fruitless cruise, his buccaneer band spotted a ship, a straggler from the Spanish treasure fleet. They voted to pursue it, and shortly after sunset, they drew alongside their prey without being seen.
The legend says that Pierre ordered the crew's surgeon to cut a hole in the side of their own boat and sink it, to inspire the men to fight their hardest for lack of a means of retreat. Then the pirates climbed up

Anne Bonny (8 March 1702 – 22 April 1782) was an Irish woman who became a famous female pirate, operating in the Caribbean. What little is known of her life comes largely from A General History of the Pyrates.
Little is known of Bonny's life, particularly prior to her arrival in the Bahamas, although it is estimated that she was born in Ireland on March 8, somewhere between 1697-1700. Official records and contemporary letters dealing with her life are scarce and most modern knowledge stems from Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates (a contemporary collection of pirate biographies, thought to be well embellished).
Bonny's family travelled to the new world very early on in her life; at first the family had a rough start in their new home. Her mother died shortly after they arrived in North America. Her father attempted to establish himself as an attorney, but did not do well. Eventually, Bonny's father joined the more profitable merchant business and accumulated a substantial fortune. It is recorded she had red hair and was considered a "good catch", but may have had a fiery temper; at aged 13 she supposedly stabbed a servant girl with a table knife. She married a poor

Christopher Jones (c. 1570 – March 5, 1622) was an English sailor, and master of the Mayflower between at least 1609 and 1622, who captained it on the transatlantic voyage that established the Plymouth Colony settlement. He was not a Plymouth Leader.
Jones was born in about 1570 in Harwich, Essex, England, the son of Christopher and Sybil Jones. When his father died, he received a ship called Marie Fortune. Jones married Sarah Twitt on 23 December 1593; she died, and was buried on 23 May 1603 in Harwich. Jones married again later that year, on 2 November 1603, to Josian Grey née Thompson (from Maldon in Essex), and shortly thereafter moved to Rotherhithe, London. He later owned a ship called the Josian, named after his wife. He came from Harwich and his oldhouse is still in the old town.
In 1609, he became the master of the Mayflower, owning a quarter of the ship. The ship was employed transporting goods such as wine, spices, and furs. In 1620, he took the Pilgrims to Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Jones River in nearby Kingston, Massachusetts was named by the Pilgrims after Captain Jones.
Jones was buried in the graveyard of St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe, England, on 5 March 1622.

The Giorgio Cini Foundation (Italian Fondazione Giorgio Cini), or just Cini Foundation, is a cultural foundation founded April 20, 1951 in memory of Count Giorgio Cini.
The Foundation is located in the former San Giorgio Monastery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. It was established by Count Vittorio Cini in memory of his son who died in an airplane accident near Cannes in 1949. Vittorio Cini had been arrested by the SS during World War II and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. His son Giorgio was able to get him released by bribing officials with diamonds and jewellery.
Part of the original purpose of the Foundation was to rebuild the convent that had been destroyed by Napoleon and later used by the Austrian Army, then the Italian Army, and rehabilitate the island within the context of the cultural history of Venice. It now houses a historical library of about 15 000 volumes, an archive of manuscripts, and a collection concerning documents about history, music, theater and art. It is also a venue for exhibitions, concerts and meetings. As such it was a meeting place for the G7 meetings in 1980 and 1987.
The Foundation possess manuscripts and letters of famous

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) (Kyūjitai: 大日本帝國海軍 Shinjitai: 大日本帝国海軍 Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun (help·info) or 日本海軍 Nippon Kaigun, literally "navy of the greater Japanese empire") was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) was formed after the dissolution of the IJN.
The Japanese Navy was the third largest navy in the world by 1920, behind the Royal Navy and United States Navy. It was supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service for aircraft and airstrike operation from the fleet. It was the primary opponent of the Western Allies in the Pacific War.
The origins of the Imperial Japanese Navy go back to early interactions with nations on the Asian continent, beginning in the early medieval period and reaching a peak of activity during the 16th and 17th centuries at a time of cultural exchange with European powers during the Age of Discovery. After two centuries of stagnation during the country's ensuing seclusion policy under the shoguns of the Edo period, Japan's navy was

Mary Read (died 1721) was an English pirate. She is chiefly remembered as one of only two women (her comrade, Anne Bonny, was the other) known to have been convicted of piracy during the early 18th century, at the height of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Mary Read was illegitimately born in England, in the late 17th century, to the widow of a sea captain.
Her date of birth is in disputed among historians because of a reference to the "Peace of Ryswick" by her contemporary biographer Captain Charles Johnson in A General History of the Pyrates. He very well may have made an error, intending to refer to the "Treaty of Utrecht". Whichever it is, her birth was anywhere from 1670-1698.
Read's mother began to disguise illegitimately-born Mary as a boy after the death of Mary's older, legitimate brother (name unknown). This was done in order to continue to receive financial support from his paternal grandmother. The grandmother was apparently fooled, and Read and her mother lived on the inheritance into her teenage years. Still dressed as a boy, Read then found work as a footboy, and later found employment on a ship.
She later joined the British military, allied with Dutch forces against the

Princess Cruises is a British-American owned cruise line, based in Santa Clarita, California in the United States. Previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises, the company is now one of ten cruise ship brands operated by Carnival Corporation & plc and accounts for approximately 19% share of its revenue. Being based in America, executive control of Princess Cruises was transferred to Carnival Corporation's American division following the merger between Carnival and P&O Princess in 2002, however Carnival UK is responsible for sales and marketing of the company in the United Kingdom. The company was made famous by The Love Boat TV series, in which two of its ships, the Island Princess and Pacific Princess were featured. In May 2013, the brand new Royal Princess will become the flagship of Princess Cruises.
Princess Cruises began in 1965, when founder Stanley McDonald chartered Canadian Pacific Limited's Alaska cruise ship Princess Patricia for Mexican Riviera cruises from Los Angeles during a time when she would have usually been laid up for the winter. However, Princess Pat, as she was fondly called, had never been designed for tropical cruising, lacking air-conditioning, and

John Paul Getty III (4 November 1956 — 5 February 2011), also known as Paul Getty, was the eldest of the four children of John Paul Getty, Jr. and Abigail (née Harris), and the grandson of oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty. His son is actor Balthazar Getty.
Getty spent most of his childhood in Rome as his father was the head of the Italian section of the Getty family's oil business. His parents divorced in 1964; with his father marrying again in 1966 to model and actress Talitha Pol. They adopted a hippie lifestyle and spent much time in England and Morocco during the 1960s.
In early 1971, he was expelled from St. George's English School (later St. George's British International School), in Rome, Italy. His father moved back to England, and at 3am on 10 July 1973, Getty was kidnapped in the Piazza Farnese in Rome. A ransom note was received, demanding $17 million in exchange for his safe return. When that ransom message arrived, some family members suspected the kidnapping was merely a ploy by the rebellious youngster as he had frequently joked about staging his own kidnapping to extract money from his frugal grandfather. He was blindfolded and imprisoned in a mountain hideout. A second

Zheng Zhilong (1604–1661), also known as Nicholas Iquan Gaspard, was a native of Nan'an, Fujian, China. He was a Chinese merchant, pirate and admiral for the Ming Empire. He was the father of Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga), also a military leader. Under the Qing Dynasty, Zheng was elevated to the rank of Count of the Second Rank. His company was known as Iquan's Party.
Zheng was born in Nan'an, Fujian, the son of Zheng Shaozu (鄭紹祖), a mid-level financial official for the Quanzhou government, and Zheng Shaozu's wife Lady Huang (黃氏). Contemporary biographies tell a possibly apocryphal story of how when Zheng was a child, he and his brothers wanted to eat longan fruit. They found a fruit tree in an enclosed courtyard but whose branches hung over the top of the wall into the street. They threw stones in the hope of knocking some of the fruit clusters loose. It happened to be the courtyard of the governor of Quanzhou City, and he was struck by the stones. The boys ran but were caught and hauled before the governor. Due to the child's age and apparent charisma, the governor forgave Zheng and released him, saying "This is the face of one destined for wealth and nobility." The story may or may

Henri Caesar, also known as Black Caesar, (fl. 1791-1830) was allegedly a 19th century Haitian revolutionary and pirate. Efforts to find historical evidence of his existence have been unsuccessful. According to works of fiction, he was a participant in the Haitian Revolution under Dutty Boukman and Toussaint Louverture as well as active in piracy for nearly a 30-year period during the early 19th century.
Henri Caesar was allegedly born to a slave family kept by a French plantation owner known as Arnaut. He worked as a houseboy on the estate and, as a young man, worked in the lumberyard. He was apparently mistreated by the supervisor and later killed the man during the slave insurrection, torturing him with a saw. Joining the rebel forces led by Dutty Boukman and Toussaint Louverture, he remained with the revolution until its independence from France in 1804, when he left to try his luck at sea. Based in Port-de-Paix, he captured a Spanish ship in 1805 and soon began attacking small villages and lone vessels near Cuba and the Bahamas. Adopting the name Black Caesar, he was very successful during his piratical career before his disappearance in 1830. Although his fate is unrecorded,

John Paul Papanicolaou (died February 14, 2010) was a Greek businessman active in the shipping industry. A family friend of the Onassis family, he is best known for his purchase and restoration of the Onassis family yacht, now known as the Christina O, and purchase and conversion of the former Yugoslavian presidential yacht Galeb, which was the third largest yacht in the world at one time. Both are rented out to family friends, as well as those who are considered to be "rich and famous", which have included: Anna Nicole Smith; Paul McCartney, and Tommy Lee (Mötley Crüe).
John-Paul Papanicolaou died in Athens, Greece on February 14, 2010 after a two-year long battle with cancer.

Marjorie Merriweather Post (March 15, 1887 – September 12, 1973, Springfield, Illinois) was a leading American socialite and the founder of General Foods, Inc.
She was the daughter of C. W. Post and Ella Letitia Merriweather. At age 27, when her father died, she became the owner of the rapidly growing Postum Cereal Company, founded in 1895. She was subsequently the wealthiest woman in America, when her fortune reached approximately USD $250 million.
Post married four times. In 1905, she married investment banker Edward Bennett Close of Greenwich, Connecticut, and divorced in 1919. Their eldest daughter, Adelaide, married Thomas Durrant, Merrall MacNeille, and banker Augustus Riggs. Their second daughter, Eleanor Post Close, later known in the media as Eleanor Post Hutton, married film director Preston Sturges, Etienne Marie Robert Gautier, George Curtis Rand, Hans Habe, Owen D. Johnson (son of author Owen Johnson), and orchestral conductor Leon Barzin. (Through his second marriage, Edward Bennett Close would become the paternal grandfather of actress Glenn Close.)
She married for a second time, in 1920, financier Edward Francis Hutton. In 1923, he became the chairman of the board

Matsura Takanobu (松浦 隆信, 1529 – April 1, 1599) or Taqua Nombo was a 16th century Japanese samurai and 25th hereditary lord of the Matsura clan of Hirado. He should not be confused with Matsura Takanobu (same spelling, same kanji), the 4th daimyo of Hirado Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate.
Matsura Takanobu was one of the most powerful feudal lords of Kyūshū and one of the first to allow trading with Europeans, particularly the Portuguese, through whom he amassed great profits in the import of western firearms. He was also an early host and patron to the Jesuits who he hoped would influence an increase in trade with the Portuguese and other European traders.
After becoming lord of Hirado in 1543{{}}, the 15-year-old Takanobu was advised by Yasumasa Toyohisa. Toyohisa was a well-known samurai and cousin of the previous lord of Hirado and, under his guidance, the domains of the Koteta family were increased to include much of Ikitsuki, together with the islands of Takushima, Ojika, Noshima as well as the areas of Kasuga, Shishi and Iira in Hirado. That same year he became an ally of a powerful wakō leader, inviting him to live in Hirado and allowing his band to dominate the outlying

The Military Sealift Command (MSC) is a United States Navy organization that controls most of the replenishment and military transport ships of the Navy. It first came into existence on 9 July 1949 when the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) became solely responsible for the Department of Defense's ocean transport needs. The MSTS was renamed the Military Sealift Command in 1970.
Military Sealift Command ships are civilian manned, and are referred to be as being in service, rather than in commission. Some, owned by the United States government, have the prefix USNS, standing for United States Naval Ship, whilst others, on charter or equivalent, are simply the normal merchant MV, SS, or GTS. Their hull numbers have the prefix T- in addition to the normal hull number that an equivalent commissioned ship in the USN would have.
Four programs comprise Military Sealift Command: Sealift, Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force (NFAF), Special Mission, and Prepositioning. The Sealift program provides the bulk of the MSC's supply-carrying operation and operates tankers for fuel transport and dry-cargo ships that transport equipment, vehicles, helicopters, ammunition, and supplies. The NFAF’s

James Stephen "Steve" Fossett (April 22, 1944 – c. September 3, 2007) was an American businessman, and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon. He made his fortune in the financial services industry, and was best known for many world records, including five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot.
A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, Fossett set 116 records in five different sports, 60 of which still stood when he disappeared.
On September 3, 2007, Fossett was reported missing after the plane he was flying over the Nevada desert failed to return. Despite a month of searches by the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and others, Fossett could not be found, and the search by CAP was called off on October 2, 2007. Privately funded and privately directed search efforts continued, but after a request from Fossett's wife, he was declared legally dead on February 15, 2008.
On September 29, 2008, a hiker found Fossett's identification cards in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, and the

Hayreddin Barbarossa, or Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha (Turkish: Barbaros Hayreddin (Hayrettin) Paşa or Hızır Hayreddin (Hayrettin) Paşa; also Khizr Reis before being promoted to the rank of Pasha and becoming the Kapudan-i Derya, born Khizr or Khidr, Turkish: Hızır; c. 1478 – 4 July 1546), was an Ottoman Turkish admiral of the fleet who was born on the island of Lesbos/Mytilini and died in Constantinople, the Ottoman capital. Barbarossa's naval victories secured Ottoman dominance over the Mediterranean during the mid 16th century, from the Battle of Preveza in 1538 until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
Hayreddin (Arabic: Khair ad-Din خير الدين, which literally means "goodness" or "best of the religion" of Islam) was an honorary name given to him by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He became known as "Barbarossa" ("Redbeard" in Italian) in Europe, a name he inherited from his elder brother Baba Oruç (Father Aruj) after Aruj was killed in a battle with the Spanish in Algeria. This name sounded like "Barbarossa" ("Redbeard") to the Europeans, and Aruj did have a red beard. The nickname then stuck also to Hayreddin's Turkish name, in the form Barbaros.
Khizr was born in the 1470s on the

Bartholomew Sharp (c. 1650 – 29 October 1702) was an English buccaneer whose pirate career lasted only three years (1679–82). His flagship was the Trinity.
Sharp's career as a pirate captain began when the buccaneers with whom he was sailing round South America needed a new commander. He quickly proved himself a natural leader and a capable seaman; however, these qualities did not prevent him being deposed as captain in January 1681, after storms and setbacks provoked a mutiny. His successor was killed three weeks later, and Sharp resumed command. Under him the buccaneers continued around South America and up to the Caribbean, taking 25 Spanish ships and plundering numerous Spanish towns. Bartholomew Sharp is credited as being the first Englishman ever to travel eastwards around Cape Horn. Sharp had planned to return to England via the Strait of Magellan, but a storm pushed the Trinity too far south, forcing him to navigate the Cape. An eyewitness account of Sharp's adventures was published in The Dangerous Voyage And Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others, London, 1684.
Because England and Spain were not at war, the Spaniards demanded Sharp's prosecution for piracy.

David Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer, and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990. Geffen was also one of the three founders of DreamWorks SKG in 1994.
Geffen was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Abraham Geffen and Batya Volovskaya, who owned a corset business. Both were Jewish immigrants who met in British-mandated Palestine and then moved to the United States. Geffen graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, then attended Santa Monica College (then known as Santa Monica City College) in Santa Monica, California, but soon left. He then attended night school at Brooklyn College for three semesters before again dropping out. He also briefly attended the University of Texas at Austin. His mother owned a clothing store, Chic Corsets By Geffen, in Borough Park, Brooklyn. David's older brother Mitchell Geffen was an attorney who attended UCLA Law School and later settled in Encino, California. Mitchell Geffen fathered two daughters, who are David's closest surviving relatives.
Geffen began his entertainment career in the mailroom at

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE, FRGS (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish polar explorer, one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest South latitude at 88° 23′ S, 97 geographical miles (112 statute miles, 190 km) from the South Pole, by far the closest convergence in exploration history up to that time. For this achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.
After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying—the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic

Eustace the Monk (c. 1170 – 24 August 1217) was a mercenary and pirate, in the tradition of medieval outlaws.
Eustace was born a younger son of Baudoin Busket, a lord of the county of Boulogne. According to his biography, he went to Toledo, Spain, studied black magic there, returned home to become a Benedictine monk at St Samer Abbey near Calais, and then left the monastery to avenge his murdered father. Other evidence, however, suggests that his father's death occurred soon after 1190. That evidence proves that by 1202 Eustace was the seneschal and bailiff of the count of Boulogne, Renaud de Dammartin and that in c. 1204, the two quarrelled and, accused of mishandling his stewardship, Eustace fled and was declared an outlaw. Renaud confiscated his lands and fields; Eustace burned two mills in retaliation.
He then became a pirate in the English Channel and the Strait of Dover, both for his own purposes and as a mercenary of France and England. John of England employed him intermittently from 1205 to 1212, against Philip II of France. The biography asserts that John gave him command of thirty ships at the start of this assignment. This employment involved Eustace and his brothers

George Lowther (died 1723) was an 18th century English pirate who, although little is known of his life, was active in the Caribbean and Atlantic. One of his lieutenants was Edward Low.
Not much is known about him before becoming the 2nd Mate on the slave ship, Gambia Castle, which was under the command of Captain Charles Russell; however Lowther was more popular with the crew, as Russell seemed to care more about his shipment of slaves than for his men. Russell distrusted Lowther, and when he attempted to have him flogged many crew members took Lowther’s side and defended him, causing a schism among the crew.
Also on board, after retreating from their fort, was a Captain Massey, along with a company of soldiers under his command. One night, while Captain Russell was offboard, Massey and Lowther decided to set sail without him. Massey intended to return to England, but Lowther, the crew, and Massy's own soldiers disagreed. Lowther was made captain and he renamed the Gambia Castle, Delivery. They attacked many ships but when Massey wanted to pillage a village on shore, he lost the vote as the risk was deemed too great. Lowther was able to obtain a smaller ship, named the Happy

Robert Culliford (c. 1666 - ?) was an English pirate from Cornwall who is best remembered for repeatedly checking the designs of Captain William Kidd.
Culliford and Kidd first met as shipmates aboard the French privateer Sainte Rose in 1689; there were only six other Britons aboard. After the War of the Grand Alliance broke out, Kidd, Culliford, and their British comrades mutinied against a French prize crew, taking the ship and renaming it the Blessed William, with Kidd put in command. But in February, 1690, Culliford led his own mutiny and deprived Kidd of his command. The pirates elected William Mason as captain.
Culliford sailed with the pirates through the Caribbean, sacking ships and attacking a town. They went to New York to sell their booty. Mason was granted a letter of marque by Jacob Leisler, then acting governor of New York, and Culliford accompanied the pirates as they ransacked and laid waste two French Canadian towns. The pirates also captured a French frigate named L'Esperance. Mason granted this ship to Culliford, who renamed it the Horne Frigate, Culliford's first pirate command. However, the pirates lost most of their booty when the two ketches they sent to bring

The Cunard Line, formerly the Cunard White-Star Line, is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England, and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century.
In 1839, Canadian-born Samuel Cunard was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract, and the next year formed the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company to operate the line's four pioneer paddle steamers on the Liverpool–Halifax–Boston route. For most of the next 30 years, Cunard held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic voyage. However, in the 1870s Cunard fell behind its rivals, the White Star Line and the Inman Line. To meet this competition, in 1879 the firm was reorganized as Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd to raise capital.
In 1902, White Star joined the American owned International Mercantile Marine Co. and the British Government provided Cunard with substantial loans and a subsidy to build two superliners needed to retain its competitive position. Mauretania held the Blue Riband from 1909 to 1929. The sinking of her sister ship Lusitania in 1915 was one of the causes

Henry Every, also Evory or Avery, (23 August 1659 – after 1696), sometimes erroneously given as John Avery, was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the mid-1690s. He likely used several aliases throughout his career, including Henry Bridgeman, and was known as Long Ben to his crewmen and associates. Dubbed "The Arch Pirate" and "The King of Pirates" by contemporaries, Every was the most notorious pirate of his time; he earned his infamy by becoming one of the few major pirate captains to retire with his loot without being arrested or killed in battle, and also for being the perpetrator of what has been called the most profitable pirate raid in history. Although Every's career as a pirate lasted only two years, his exploits captured the public's imagination, inspired others to take up piracy, and spawned numerous works of literature.
Every was born in England's West Country, but little else is known about his early life. He served in the Royal Navy from 1689 to 1690, likely participating in several battles of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697). Following his discharge from the navy, Every began slave trading along Africa's Slave Coast. In 1693, he was

MSC Cruises (Italian: MSC Crociere S.p.A.) is a division of Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. (MSC).
Originally founded as Lauro Lines by Achille Lauro, the company entered the cruise business in the 1960s, operating two ships, the Angelina Lauro and MS Achille Lauro, both of which met fiery ends. After the Angelina Lauro burnt in the port of St.Thomas in 1979, Lauro Lines, also known as Flotta Lauro, met with bad times, now operating just one ship, the Achille Lauro. In 1985, the Achille Lauro was hijacked by members of the Palestine Liberation Front, and the much-publicised event further dropped passenger numbers. In 1989, Flotta Lauro was purchased by Mediterranean Shipping Company and renamed StarLauro Cruises. In 1994, the Achille Lauro caught fire and sank. In 1995, the company name was changed to MSC Cruises.
MSC Cruises is the fourth largest cruise operator in the world, after Carnival Corporation & plc, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Norwegian Cruise Line with a 6% share of all passengers carried and cruise revenue in 2012.
On March 1, 2010, after strong support from French government, STX Europe and MSC Cruises announced signing a new Letter of Intent to build one,

Navigazione Generale Italiana (NGI) was an Italian shipping company formed in 1881 by the merger of I & V. Florio of Palermo and Raffaele Rubattino of Genoa. At the time of the merger, the two companies both operated extensively in the Mediterranean, with I & V Florio also operating routes to the United States and Canada, and Raffele Rubattino operating routes to India and the Far East through the Suez Canal.
Following the merger, the new company not only maintained the existing service, it expanded by adding service to South America in 1884. To support the new routes, in 1885, NGI acquired competitors Società Italiana Trasporti Marittimi Raggio & Co. and Società Rocco Piaggio & Figli.
Società Italiana di Transporti Marittimi Raggio & Co. was founded in Genoa in 1882 by Carlo, Edilio and Armando Raggio to transport passengers and freight between Italy and South America; Società Rocco Piaggio & Figli was formed in Genoa in 1870 and operated routes to Montevideo and Buenos Aires through the Canary Islands, then later between Genoa, Naples, and Rio de la Plata.
In 1901, the company further expanded by acquiring the assets of La Veloce, a shipping company formed in 1884 which was

Renaissance Cruises, originally founded in 1989 owned by Fearnley & Eger Rederi in Oslo - Norway, was a cruise line operator that operated year-round cruise itineraries to the Mediterranean, the Greek Isles, Tahiti and the South Pacific, Northern Europe and Scandinavia. The company ceased operations on 25 September 2001 and accommodated up to 220,000 guests in 2000. While the company had been in poor financial health for quite some time, the economic decline resulting from the September 11th terrorist attacks are credited with the demise of this cruise line. The fleet is listed under List of cruise ships. It was headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The pride of the fleet were the line's eight brand new 684-passenger R-Class ships named R One, R Two, R Three, R Four, R Five, R Six, R Seven and R Eight. The ships in this class were built between 1998 and 2001. Following the bankruptcy of Renaissance Cruises, all of the vessels were chartered or sold to other cruise lines and continue to operate to this day.
The company also owned and operated eight "Renaissance" class ships. The first four of them were built in Cantiere Navale Ferrari-Signani shipyards in La Spezia, Italy, from

Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius, in English Sextus Pompey (67 BC – 35 BC), was a Roman general from the late Republic (1st century BC). He was the last focus of opposition to the Second Triumvirate. His father was Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) and Shakespeare had him as a major character in his play Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07).
Sextus Pompeius was the youngest son of Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) by his third wife, Mucia Tertia. His older brother was Gnaeus Pompeius, from the same mother. Both boys grew up in the shadow of their father, one of Rome's best generals and an originally non-conservative politician who drifted to the more traditional faction when Julius Caesar became a threat.
When Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, thus starting a civil war, Sextus' older brother Gnaeus followed their father in his escape to the East, as did most of the conservative senators. Sextus stayed in Rome in the care of his stepmother, Cornelia Metella. Pompey's army lost the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC and Pompey himself had to run for his life. Cornelia and Sextus met him in the island of Lesbos and together they fled to Egypt. On the arrival, Sextus watched his

Alexander Dalzeel (c. 1662 – December 5, 1715) was a seventeenth-century pirate and former officer under Henry Avery.
Born in Port Patrick, Scotland, Dalzeel went to sea as a child and, by the age of 23, was captain of his own ship with six successful voyages to his credit. Earning a reputation for dishonesty, Dalzeel arrived in Madagascar in 1685 and soon enlisted into the ranks of Captain Avery.
According to pirate lore, Dalzeel participated in the capture of the treasure ship Ganj-i-Sawai, which carried The Great Mogul's daughter to her arranged marriage. Avery, who had decided to take her as his own wife, gave Dalzeel his own ship and crew within Avery's fleet. Dalzeel would continue to serve under Avery until finally leaving for the West Indies on his own.
However, upon their arrival in the Caribbean, the pirates' search for targets was fruitless. With their supplies slowly running short, starvation began to set in before a Spanish vessel was sighted. As the ship came into view, Dalzeel realized the Spanish ship was a well-armed Spanish war galleon which had presumably become separated from its escorts. Despite their ship's smaller size, Dalzeel gave orders to close in on the

The American Line was a shipping company based in Philadelphia that was founded in 1871. It began as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, although the railroad got out of the shipping business soon after founding the company. In 1902 it became part of the International Navigation Co., with the American Line generally handling traffic between the United States ports of Philadelphia and New York City and the British ports of Liverpool and Southampton. Sister company Red Star Line handled traffic between America and the European continent, primarily through Antwerp, Belgium. The company's most prominent president was Clement Griscom, who led the company from 1888 to 1902 and worked as a company executive for its entire existence. During its existence the company was the largest American shipping company, rivalled only by the smaller, Baltimore-based Atlantic Transport Lines, although this distinction is a marginal one as all American oceanic shipping concerns were dwarfed by British companies such as the White Star Line or Cunard Line and German ones such as HAPAG.
The company became much larger when it bought out the Inman Line in 1886. In 1902, Griscom decided to merge his company

The Center for Wooden Boats (CWB) is a museum dedicated to preserving and documenting the maritime history of the Pacific Northwest area of the United States.
The CWB collection includes over 100 vessels, mostly small sailboats and rowboats. The boats are divided into a number of sections. The livery fleet includes day sailers, rowboats, and one pedal boat.
The 20-foot (6.1 m) Blanchard Junior Knockabout is the mainstay of the CWB's rental fleet. They have six, which are used for teaching and rentals.

Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina (Spanish pronunciation: [rafaˈel leˈoniðas tɾuˈxiʝo]; October 24, 1891 – May 30, 1961), nicknamed El Jefe (Spanish: [el ˈxefe], The Chief or The Boss), served as dictator of the the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. He officially served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, otherwise ruling as an unelected military strongman. His 30 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era (Spanish: La Era de Trujillo), is considered one of the bloodiest ever in the Americas, as well as a time of a classic personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo were in abundance. It has been estimated that Trujillo's authoritarian rule was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 people, including 20,000 to 30,000 in the infamous Parsley Massacre.
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina was born in San Cristóbal to José Trujillo Valdez, a small retailer possibly of Canarian origin, and Altagracia Julia Molina Chevalier, later known as Mamá Julia, who was of Afro-Dominican ancestry. Trujillo later suppressed knowledge of his mother's ancestry due to his policy of ethnic cleansing of Afro-Dominican and Haitian

Benito Soto Aboal (April 22, 1805, Pontevedra - January 25, 1830, Gibraltar) was a Galician pirate, and captain of the Burla Negra ("Black Joke").
Benito de Soto was the most notorious of the last generation of pirates to plunder shipping in the Atlantic, one of those arising from the ending of the Napoleonic Wars.
De Soto served on an Argentinian slave ship before leading a mutiny off the coast of Angola in 1827. When 18 of the crew declined to participate they were cast adrift off in an open boat.
Having renamed the vessel the Burla Negra, de Soto crossed the Atlantic, where he sold stolen cargo of slaves in the Caribbean, and then sailed south, attacking English, American, Spanish and Portuguese ships along the South American coast. From 1830 the Burla Negra also ventured eastwards into the Atlantic to intercept vessels returning from India and the Far East.
He proved to be one of the most bloodthirsty pirates of any age, murdering crews who fell into his hands and sinking their ships.
The most infamous episode in de Soto's career came on 19 February 1828, when the Burla Negra happened upon the Morning Star en route from Ceylon to England. After killing some of the passengers

Sir Christopher Myngs (1625–1666), English admiral and pirate, came of a Norfolk family and was a relative of another admiral, Sir Cloudesley Shovell. Pepys' story of his humble birth, in explanation of his popularity, is said to be erroneous. His name is often given as Mings.
The date of Myngs's birth is uncertain, but probably somewhere between 1620 and 1625. It is probable that he saw a good deal of sea-service before 1648. He first appears prominently as the captain of the Elisabeth, which after a sharp action during the First Anglo-Dutch War brought in a Dutch convoy with two men-of-war as prizes. From 1653 to 1655 he continued to command the Elisabeth, high in favour with the council of state and recommended for promotion by the flag officers under whom he served.
In 1655, he was appointed to the frigate Marston Moor, the crew of which was on the verge of mutiny. His firm measures quelled the insubordinate spirit, and he took the vessel out to the West Indies, arriving in January 1656 on Jamaica where he became the subcommander of the naval flotilla there, until the summer of 1657. In February 1658, he returned to Jamaica as naval commander, acting as a commerce raider

Suleyman Abusaidovich Kerimov (Russian: Сулейман Абусаидович Керимов; Lezgian: Керимрин Абусаидан хва Сулейман) (Lezgian), born March 12, 1966 in Derbent, Dagestan, USSR, is a member of the Federation Council of Russia. He is also a successful businessman, investor and philanthropist.
Following his high school graduation in 1983, Kerimov enrolled in the Civil Engineering Department at Dagestan Polytechnic Institute in 1984, although obligatory military service for the Soviet Army briefly brought his studies to a halt just one year later. After completing his service in 1986, Kerimov continued his studies at Dagestan State University, where he graduated with a degree in financial accounting and economics in 1989.
Soon after his university graduation in 1989, Kerimov took a job as an economist and assistant Director General at the Eltav electrical plant in Makhachkala. He and his wife lived in a worker’s hostel attached to the plant, where they shared one room of a two-room flat. The state-controlled plant supplied transistors and semi-conductors to television-makers, while also producing diodes, microchips and halogen lamps.
Beginning in 1995 and following his departure from the

The Union-Castle Line was a prominent British shipping line that operated a fleet of passenger liners and cargo ships between Europe and Africa from 1900 to 1977. It was formed from the merger of the Union Line and Castle Shipping Line. It merged with Bullard King and Clan Line in 1956 to form British & Commonwealth Shipping, and then with South African Marine Corporation in 1973 to create International Liner Services, but maintained its separate identity throughout. Its shipping operations ceased in 1977.
The Union Line was founded in 1853 as the Southampton Steam Shipping Company to transport coal from South Wales to Southampton. It was renamed the Union Steam Collier Company and then the Union Steamship Company. In 1857, renamed the Union Line, it won a contract to carry mail to South Africa.
Meanwhile Donald Currie had built up the Castle Packet Co. which traded to Calcutta round the Cape of Good Hope. This trade substantially curtailed by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the Castle Line started to run to South Africa instead, later becoming the Castle Mail Packet Company. From 1876 the mail contract to South Africa was awarded jointly to the Castle Mail Packet

William "Captain" Kidd (c. 1645 – 23 May 1701) was a Scottish sailor remembered for his trial and execution for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean. Some modern historians deem his piratical reputation unjust, as there is evidence that Kidd acted only as a privateer. Kidd's fame springs largely from the sensational circumstances of his questioning before the English Parliament and the ensuing trial. His actual depredations on the high seas, whether piratical or not, were both less destructive and less lucrative than those of many other contemporary pirates and privateers.
Captain William Kidd was either one of the most notorious pirates in the history of the world or one of its most unjustly vilified and prosecuted privateers in an age typified by the rationalisation of empire. Despite the legends and fiction surrounding this character, his actual career was punctuated by only a handful of skirmishes followed by a desperate quest to clear his name.
Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland January 1654. He gave the city as his place of birth and said he was aged 41 in testimony under oath at the High Court of the Admiralty in October 1695. Researcher Dr David Dobson

The Canadian Northern Pacific Railway (CNoPR) was an historic Canadian railway with a main line running between the Alberta–British Columbia border and Vancouver, British Columbia. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR).
This railway existed mainly on paper, thus there were no cars or locomotives lettered as "Canadian Northern Pacific". As far as the public and most workers were concerned, it was just a part of the CNoR.
The CNoPR was incorporated in 1910. The last spike was driven at Basque, British Columbia, near Ashcroft, in January 1915. This event completed Canada's third transcontinental railway, which ran from Quebec City, Quebec, to Vancouver, British Columbia.
On Vancouver Island CNoP had a line that competed with the EN Line but went a different route from Victoria. The route would go to Sooke, then through Leechtown, Shawnigan lake to Cowichan lake. Another section of rail went further North-west to Kissinger. This line was for logging. Later on CN took over the route. For many years passenger service ran up and down the island until it was pulled. Logging and freight continued but this to slowly started disappearing. In 1955 the

Sir James Lancaster (died 6 June 1618) was a prominent Elizabethan trader and privateer.
Lancaster came from Basingstoke in Hampshire. In his early life, he was a soldier and a trader in Portugal. On 10 April 1591 he started from Torbay in Devon, with Raymond and Foxcroft, on his first great voyage to the East Indies; this fleet of three ships is the earliest of the English oversea Indian expeditions. Reaching Table Bay (1 August 1591), and losing one ship off Cape Correntes on 12 September, the squadron rested and refitted at Zanzibar (February 1592), rounded Cape Comorin the following May, and reached the Malay Peninsula in June. During this voyage, Lancaster's ships attacked for plunder every ship they encountered.
After a later crossing to Ceylon, the crews insisted on returning home. The return voyage was disastrous with only twenty-five officers and men surviving to reach England in May 1594. Lancaster himself reached Rye on 24 May 1594. His Indian voyage, like Ralph Fitch's overland explorations and trading, was an important factor in the foundation of the East India Company. In the same year he led a privateering expedition against Pernambuco. Unlike the East Indies voyage,

Jean Bart (21 October 1650 – 27 April 1702) was a French sailor who served the French crown as naval commander and privateer.
Jean Bart was born in Dunkirk in 1650to a seafaring family, the son of a sailor who has been described variously as a fisherman or corsair commander. He almost certainly spoke Flemish, at that time the native language in the region, and his birth name was most probably Jan Baert.
When he was young, Bart served in the Dutch navy under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. When war broke out between France and the United Provinces in 1672, he entered the French service. Since persons not of noble birth in those days couldn't obtain the rank of officer in the navy, he became captain of one of the Dunkirk privateers. In this capacity he displayed astonishing bravery, so that Louis XIV sent him on a special mission to the Mediterranean, where he gained great distinction.
Unable due to his low birth to receive a command in the navy, he held an irregular sort of commission, but he had such success, however, that he became a lieutenant in 1679. He became a terror to the Dutch navy and a serious menace to the commerce of Holland. On one occasion, with six vessels, he broke

Jørgen Jørgensen (surname changed to Jorgenson from 1817) (29 March 1780 – 20 January 1841) was a Danish adventurer during the Age of Revolution. During the Action of 2 March 1808 his ship was captured by the British. In 1809 he sailed to Iceland, declared the country independent from Denmark and pronounced himself its ruler. He was also a prolific writer of letters, papers, pamphlets and newspaper articles covering a wide variety of subjects, and was an associate of the famous botanists Joseph Banks and William Jackson Hooker for a period.
At the age of 15, Jørgensen served as an apprentice to Captain Henry Marwood of the British collier Janeon. In 1799 he sailed to Cape Town and from there in 1800 to Port Jackson, the new British colony in Australia. In 1801 he joined the crew of the Lady Nelson. As a member of that crew, Jørgensen was present at the establishment of the first settlements of Risdon Cove and Sullivans Cove in Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then called.
In 1807, while Jørgensen was visiting his family, he witnessed the Battle of Copenhagen and soon afterwards was given command of a small Danish vessel, the Admiral Juul. In 1808 he engaged in a sea battle with

Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (日本郵船株式会社, Nippon Yūsen Kabushiki Kaisha) (TYO: 9101) (Japan Mail Shipping Line) or NYK Line, is one of the largest shipping companies in the world. It is a core Mitsubishi company. The company has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.
The company traces its history back to the Tsukumo Shokai Shipping company founded by the Tosa clan in 1870. In 1875, as the renamed Mitsubishi Shokai, the company inaugurated Japan's first passenger liner service, with a route from Yokohama to Shanghai; and in that same year, the company name was changed to Mitsubishi Mail Steamship Company. In 1885, a merger with Kyodo Unyu Kaisha (founded 1882) led to the adoption of the company's present name.
The merged company had a fleet of 58 steamships and expanded its operations rapidly, first to other ports of the East and then worldwide, with a liner service to London being inaugurated in 1899.
The majority of Japanese merchant ships, tankers and liners sailed under the NYK banner during this period. Regular services linked Kobe and Yokohama with South America, Batavia, Melbourne, Cape Town; and frequent cruises to San Francisco and Seattle. Other routes connected local

Awilda, also known as Alwilda, was a female pirate, according to legend.
Awilda was the daughter of a 5th century Scandinavian king; referred to in one source as Synardus and a "Gothic king". It is said that the King, her father, had arranged a marriage for her to Alf, the crown prince of Denmark, whose father was King Sygarus of Denmark. However, Awilda refused her father's choice. She and some of her female friends dressed like sailors and commandeered a ship. While sailing, they came across a pirate ship that had recently lost its captain, and the pirates elected Awilda as their captain. The King of Denmark sent his son and a navy ship to battle with the "irksome" pirates. Prince Alf and his men were able to board their ship and gain the upper hand in the battle. Apparently, Awilda was so impressed with the prince's courage that she revealed her true identity, and agreed to marry Alf. They married on board, and lived happily ever after as King and Queen of Denmark.
The story of Awilda is doubted by some historical scholars and considered to be a legend.
Awilda, Awilda (les dialogues) is a poem written by Stephen Wack depicting the story of Awilda and Prince Alf's eventual

Cornelis Corneliszoon Jol (1597 – October 31, 1641), nicknamed Houtebeen ("pegleg"), was a 17th-Century Dutch corsair and admiral in the Dutch West India Company during the Eighty Year's War between Spain and the fledgling Dutch Republic. He was one of several early buccaneers to attack Campeche, looting the settlement in 1633, and was active against the Spanish in the Spanish Main and throughout the Caribbean during the 1630s and 40s.
Jol was really more of a pirate (or rather privateer) than an admiral, raiding Spanish and Portuguese fleets and gathering large amounts of loot. He was nicknamed Houtebeen (Pé de Pau in Portuguese and Pata de Palo in Spanish), because he lost a leg during battle and got a wooden leg, being one of the earliest documented pirates to use a wooden peg leg. The Spanish also nicknamed him El Pirata.
His son, also called Cornelis Corneliszoon Jol (or Hola), pursued a career at sea as well and served as an officer in the Dutch navy. He was captain of the Leiden under admiral Maarten Tromp during the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654).
A street in Scheveningen is named for Jol. One of his descendants named a company after him (Corneliszoon.com). Erstwhile AFC

Jean Baptiste du Casse (Saubusse, August 2, 1646 – Bourbon-l'Archambault, June 25, 1715) was a French buccaneer and admiral.
In his youth, he was not allowed into the French Navy because his parents were Huguenots. He then went into the slave trade with the Compagnie de Sénégal, sailing between Africa and the Caribbean.
With the money of the slave trade he bought a ship in Saint-Domingue and privateered a packed Dutch ship. He sailed to France and offered half of the loot to the Crown. For this he was appointed Lieutenant in the French Navy by Louis XIV.
In 1687 he tried to conquer Elmina; in June 1689 he attacked Berbice and Fort Zeelandia in Surinam.
In 1691, he was appointed governor of Saint-Domingue, and gained the respect of the buccaneers of the island. In the following months he plundered the English colonies in the vicinity, including Port Royal which had just been struck by a devastating earthquake.
In 1697, under Baron de Pointis he successfully raided the South American city of Cartagena, but did not receive the promised 1/5 share of the loot. He then sailed to France, to claim his share from King Louis XIV in person. In fact he and his men received a compensation of

Laurene Powell Jobs (born November 6, 1963) is an American business executive, co-founder and President of the Board of College Track, and widow of Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc.
Powell Jobs achieved a BA degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a BSc degree in Economics (BSE) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1985. She received her MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1991.
She married Steve Jobs on March 18, 1991, in a ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Presiding over the wedding was Kobun Chino Otogawa, a Zen Buddhist monk. Their son, Reed, was born September 1991, followed by daughters Erin in 1995 and Eve in 1998. The family lives in Palo Alto, California.
Powell Jobs co-founded Terravera, a natural foods company that sells to retailers throughout Northern California. She also served on the board of directors of Achieva, which made online tools to help students study and to be more effective at taking tests. Before business school, Powell Jobs worked for Merrill Lynch Asset Management and spent three years at Goldman Sachs as a fixed-income trading strategist.
Powell Jobs

Magister Wigbold (1365–1402), also called “Master of the Seven Arts”, was a German pirate who belonged to the famous Likedeeler pirates of Klaus Störtebeker. Wighold was one of the most noted Likedeeler, along with Gödeke Michels and Störtebeker. The nickname Wigbold comes from wig (strife) and bold (courageous, bold). His real name is unknown.
The early life of Wigbold is poorly documented. He is said to have entered a monastery, where he learned various skills. However, he was expelled under unclear circumstances. He then supposedly attended university at Oxford. He was often described as the brains behind the pirate band. Unlike Michels or Störtebeker, Wigbold did not seek battles but preferred to negotiate a surrender and reduce casualties.
The Likedeelers robbed ships on the "Western Sea" (today North Sea) until the Hanseatic League sent a sizable military force to smash the group. Michels and the Magister escaped at first, but after the death of Störtebeker in 1401, they were finally captured and were executed in 1402 on the Grasbrook in Hamburg.

The New York Yacht Club is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. The organization has over 3,000 members as of 2011. Membership in the club is by invitation only. Its officers include a Commodore, vice-commodore, rear-commodore, secretary and treasurer.
In 1845, the club’s first clubhouse was established — a modest, Gothic-revival building in Hoboken, New Jersey, on land donated by Commodore Stevens. After the outgrowing its cramped quarters, the club moved to several other locations, including Staten Island, Glen Cove, New York and Mystic, Connecticut, before reaching its current Newport location on the grounds of "Harbour Court."
Its primary clubhouse is a six-storied Beaux-Arts landmark with a nautical-themed limestone facade, located at 37 West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan. Opened in 1901, it was designed by Warren and Wetmore (1898), architects of the exterior of Grand Central Terminal. The centerpiece of the clubhouse is the "Model Room," which contains a magnificent collection of full and half hull

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which is usually known as P&O, is a British shipping and logistics company which dates from the early 19th century. Following its sale in March 2006 to Dubai Ports World for £3.9 billion, it became a subsidiary of DP World; however, the P&O brand has been retained. The company was headquartered in London, in the United Kingdom; it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
In 1822, Brodie McGhie Willcox, a London ship broker, and Arthur Anderson, a sailor from the Shetland Isles, northern Scotland, went into partnership to operate a shipping line, primarily operating routes between England and Spain and Portugal. In 1835, Dublin shipowner Captain Richard Bourne joined the business, and the three men started a regular steamer service between London and Spain and Portugal - the Iberian Peninsula - using the name Peninsular Steam Navigation Company, with services to Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon and Cádiz. The company flag colours are directly connected with the Peninsular flags: the white and blue represent the Portuguese flag in 1837, and the yellow and red the Spanish flag.
In 1837, the business

Robert Searle (alias John Davis) was one of the earliest and most active of the English buccaneers on Jamaica.
Nothing, to date, is known of his early life. The famous buccaneer chronicler, Esquemeling, states that Searle was “born at Jamaica,” but this seems unlikely, since that island did not become an English dominion until 1655. Searle’s career as a “gentleman of fortune” was marred by frequent quarrels with Sir Thomas Modyford, royal governor of Jamaica, who usually befriended buccaneers.
Searle’s first known ship was the 60-ton, 8-gun Cagway, the largest of four Spanish merchantmen captured by Sir Christopher Myngs as he returned from his raid on Santa Marta and Tolú (Colombia) in 1659. Four years later, Searle captained the Cagway as part of Myng’s expedition against Santiago de Cuba. This force of 1,300 men and a dozen vessels sailed from Port Royal (Jamaica) on October 1, 1662 and two-and-a-half weeks later disembarked to the east of their intended target. Santiago was overrun the following day and a considerable amount of booty carried back to Jamaica.
In 1664, the political situation in Europe and the Caribbean was volatile. Constant raiding by English buccaneers had

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (Russian: Рома́н Арка́дьевич Абрамо́вич, pronounced [rəˈman ərˈkadʲjɪvʲɪtɕ əbrɐˈmovʲɪtɕ]; born 24 October 1966) is a Russian business tycoon and the main owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC.
He is known outside Russia as the owner of Chelsea Football Club, an English Premier League football team, and for his wider involvement in European football.
Abramovich is currently the 9th richest person in Russia and the 68th richest person in the world, according to the 2012 Forbes list, with an estimated fortune of US$12.1 billion. After the case with former business partner Boris Berezovsky, Abramovich won the court case worth US$6.5 billion.
Abramovich's parents both died before he was four, and he was thereafter raised by his extended family in Ukhta, later moving to Moscow.
Roman Abramovich started his multi-billion-dollar business during his army service where he sold stolen gasoline to some of the commissioned officers of his unit. After a brief stint in the Soviet Army, he married his first wife, Olga. He first worked as a street-trader and then as a mechanic at a local factory. At the peak of perestroika, Abramovich sold imported

The Royal Navy (RN) is the principal naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Tracing its origins to the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service. From the end of the 17th century until well into the 20th century it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power. Due to this historical prominence, it is common - also among non-Britons - to refer to it as "The Royal Navy" without qualification.
Following victory in the First World War the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the largest in the world. By the end of the Second World War the United States Navy had emerged as the world's largest. During the course of the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union its focus has returned to global expeditionary operations.
The Royal Navy operates a "blue-water" fleet of technologically sophisticated ships including an aircraft carrier (though without

Tung Chao Yung (traditional Chinese: 董兆榮; simplified Chinese: 董兆荣; pinyin: Dōng Zhàoróng) better known as 董浩雲, Chinese: 董浩云; pinyin: Dōng Hàoyún, born 18th of the eighth lunar month in 1912; died 15 April 1982), also known as C. Y. Tung, was a Chinese shipping magnate, the founder of the Orient Overseas Line (now Orient Overseas Container Line or OOCL). He was the father of Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.
At the peak of his career, he owned a shipping fleet with over 150 freight ships; his fleet's cargo capacity exceeded 10 million tons. He was one of the world's top seven freight moguls; he was often called the Onassis of the Orient.
Tung believed in the importance of education. In September 1970, he bought the famous ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth to convert it into a floating university S.S. Seawise University to keep the World Campus Afloat program alive. On 9 January 1972, the ship caught on fire during refurbishing and sank into Hong Kong's harbour. The wreckage of the ship was featured in a James Bond movie. He did not give up the plan because of this setback. He bought a smaller

A.P. Moller – Maersk Group (Danish: A.P. Møller – Mærsk Gruppen), also known as Maersk (Danish: Mærsk), is a Danish business conglomerate. A.P. Moller – Maersk Group has activities in a variety of business sectors, primarily within the transportation and energy sectors. It has been the largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator in the world since 1996.
A.P. Moller – Maersk Group is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with subsidiaries and offices in more than 135 countries worldwide and around 108,000 employees. It ranked 147 on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2010, down from 106 in 2009.
A.P. Moller – Maersk Group started as the shipping company Dampskibsselskabet Svendborg, founded by captain Peter Mærsk-Møller and his son Arnold Peter Møller (2 October 1876–June 1965) in Svendborg, 1904. A.P. Møller had four children, two by each of his two wives Chastine Estelle Roberta Mc-Kinney and Norwegian-born Pernille Ulrikke Amalie Nielsen. A.P. Møller's second child was Arnold Mærsk McKinney Møller (13 July 1913–16 April 2012). In 1939, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller became a partner in the company. Following the death of A.P. Møller in June 1965, he became CEO of the company and held

The Aberdeen Line was a shipping company founded in 1825 by George Thompson of Aberdeen to take sailing vessels to the St. Lawrence carrying some passengers and returning with cargoes of timber. The business flourished and grew to 12 sailing vessels by 1837, travelling to South America, the Pacific, West Indies and the Mediterranean. In 1842 the line included a regular schedule from London to Australia.
The Aberdeen Line’s best known ship was the clipper Thermopylae, launched in 1868, and constructed with the ‘Aberdeen Bow’, designed for greater speed and seaworthiness. The clipper set new records for voyages to and from Australia and the Far East. In 1872, her nearest rival, "Cutty Sark", lost by seven days in a race from Shanghai to London. Thermopylae was acknowledged to be the fastest sailing ship afloat.
The arrival of the steamship signalled the end of the sailing era, but enabled the line to introduce a regular service between London and Australia in 1882 and by 1899 all the vessels were able to carry frozen produce.
Changing fortunes put the company under joint control of White Star Line and Shaw, Savill & Albion Line in 1905, while retaining a degree of autonomy. In 1928

The Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG for short, often referred to in English as Hamburg America Line (sometimes also Hamburg-American Line, Hamburg-Amerika Linie or Hamburg Line); literally Hamburg American Packet-shipping Joint Stock Company) was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, Germany, during 1847. Among the initiators were prominent citizens such as Adolph Godeffroy, Ferdinand Laeisz, H. J. Merck, Carl Woermann, August Bolten and others. It soon developed into the largest German, and at times the world's largest, shipping company, serving the market created by the German immigration to the United States and later immigration from Eastern Europe. On September 1, 1970, after 123 years of independent existence, HAPAG merged with the Bremen-based North German Lloyd to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.
In the early years, the Hamburg America Line exclusively connected European ports with North American ports, such as Hoboken, New Jersey, or New Orleans, Louisiana. With time, however, the company established lines to all continents.
HAPAG's leader, Alfred Balin, believed that safety, size, comfort and luxury would always win out over speed.

Peter Easton (c. 1570 – 1620 or after) was a pirate in the early 17th century who operated along the Newfoundland coastline between Harbour Grace and Ferryland from 1611 to 1614. Perhaps one of the most successful of all pirates he controlled such seapower that no sovereign or state could afford to ignore him and he was never overtaken or captured by any fleet commissioned to hunt him down. However, he is not as well known as some of the pirates from the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Peter Easton had been a loyal servant of the English Crown whose ancestors had served in the Crusades. The Eastons also distinguished themselves against the Spanish Armada.
In 1602, Easton was in command of a convoy as a privateer with a commission from Queen Elizabeth I, to protect the Newfoundland fishing fleet. During these times, fishing vessels would carry arms and small cannons to protect the valuable cargo of fish from pirates and foreign vessels. Under his commission he could legally press-gang local fishermen into service for him. He could also attack the ships and wharves of the enemy as much as he wished, especially the much hated Spanish. Peter Easton's flagship was the Happy

Royal Caribbean International is a Norwegian and American cruise line brand based in Miami, Florida and owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.. With 22 ships in service under, it controls a 17% share of the world cruise market. All ships under the Royal Caribbean International brand have names ending in "of the Seas" since 1991. Sister brands are Celebrity Cruises, Azamara Cruises, Pullmantur and CDF Croisières de France.
Royal Caribbean International was founded as Royal Caribbean Cruise Line in 1968 by Anders Wilhelmsen & Company, I.M. Skaugen & Company, and Gotaas Larsen, Norwegian shipping companies. The newly created line put its first ship, the Song of Norway, into service two years later. The next year, the line's capacity was doubled with the addition of the Nordic Prince to the fleet. Continuing to expand, the line added the Sun Viking in 1972. After four years of successful operation, Royal Caribbean's Song of Norway became their first passenger ship to be lengthened. This was accomplished via the insertion of an 85-foot (26 m) section to the vessel's severed center. Following the success of this procedure, Nordic Prince was stretched in 1980. Royal Caribbean finally

Salih Reis (1488 ca. – 1568) was a Turkish privateer and Ottoman admiral. He is alternatively referred to as Salah Rais, Sala Reis, Salih Rais, Salek Rais and Cale Arraez in several European resources, particularly in Spain, France and Italy.
In 1529, together with Aydın Reis, he took part in the Turkish-Spanish battle near the Isle of Formentera, during which the Ottoman forces destroyed the Spanish fleet, whose commander, Rodrigo Portundo, died in combat.
In 1538 he commanded the right wing of the Turkish fleet at the naval Battle of Preveza, where the Ottoman forces under Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha defeated the Holy League of Charles V under the command of Andrea Doria.
In 1551, due to his success in the conquest of Tripoli (Libya) together with Turgut Reis and Sinan Pasha, he was promoted to the rank of Pasha and became the Beylerbeyi (Ottoman equivalent of Grand Duke) of Algiers and the Bahriye Beylerbeyi (Admiral) of the Ottoman West Mediterranean Fleet.
Salih Reis was born in Biga, a village between Çanakkale and Edremit, near Kaz Dağı (Mount Ida) to the south of ancient Troy, on the Aegean coast of Turkey, in around 1488.
At a very young age he joined the fleet of Oruç Reis

Captain William (Billy One-Hand) Condon was an English pirate. His ship was called the Fiery Dragon and was found by Barry Clifford off the coast of Sainte-Marie, Madagascar, where it had caught fire and sunk in 1721.
He retired and settled on Réunion in 1721. He later moved to Normandy in 1723 and worked as a merchant and shipowner.

Disney Cruise Line is an American cruise line company owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a division of The Walt Disney Company and is headquartered in Celebration, Florida. The business is run by President Karl Holz. Disney Cruise Line operates the Disney Cruise Line Terminal, which homeports the Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy. The Disney Magic is homeported in New York City and Galveston, while the Disney Wonder is homeported in Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, and Miami, Florida. In 2012, it is estimated Disney Cruise Lines will own nearly 3% share of the worldwide cruise market.
Disney Cruise Line was created in 1995 when the company commissioned its two ships at Fincantieri in Italy, ending an arrangement with Premier Cruise Line for the maritime segment of its vacation packages. Disney had contracted Premier Cruise Line to provide cruise vacations in the 1980s, also sailing from Port Canaveral. The ships were similarly marketed as family vacations and featured costumed Disney Characters.
The Disney Magic began operation July 30, 1998. The Disney Wonder began operation August 15, 1999. The ships each contain 900 staterooms and are not identical in their

The Indo-China Steam Navigation Company Ltd. (ICSNC), was established in 1873 as a subsidiary of Hong Kong based Jardine, Matheson & Co., one of the largest trading companies in the Far East at that time.
With the advent of steam, Jardines became concerned that it might lose its former advantage in operating fast clippers. As a result, the company became seriously involved in steamships in the mid-1850s servicing the Bengal – China trade. Regular services up and down the coast, with occasional diversions to Japan, were implemented around the same time. Jardines established the China Coast Steam Navigation Co. (CCSNC) in 1873, which operated between Chinese ports and Japan. ICSNC was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1881 with a capital of £449,800 The new company amalgamated the group's river, coastal and cargo interests, taking over CCSNC’s coastal fleet and sending ships to Singapore, Calcutta and Vladivostok. In 1885, a new service from Hong Kong to Manila began operating.
In the early 20th century, more than half of all the ships on the Yangtze River were owned by ICSNC and their arch rivals Butterfield and Swire. British investment in the Yangtze Valley, including

Northwestern Mutual is a mutual company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that offers financial services, including life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability insurance, annuities, mutual funds, and employee benefit services. Northwestern Mutual also provides consultation on asset and income protection, personal needs, investments, financial planning, estate planning, trusts, business needs, retirement, and employee benefits.
The company maintains unsurpassed ratings for insurance financial strength from all four major rating agencies (Standard & Poors lowered ratings for a number of insurance companies, including Northwestern Mutual, to AA+ in August 2011): A.M. Best, Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch Ratings.
The company is the nation's largest direct provider of individual life insurance in the United States, with more than $2 trillion in force. It is also the industry leader in total individual life insurance dividends paid to policy owners.

The Republic of Singapore Navy (Abbreviation: RSN; Malay: Angkatan Laut Republik Singapura; Chinese: 新加坡共和国海军部队; Tamil: சிங்கப்பூர் கடல் படை) is the naval component of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), responsible for the defence of Singapore against sea-borne threats and protection of its sea lines of communications. Operating within the crowded littoral waters of the Singapore Strait, the RSN is regarded as one of the best in the region. All commissioned ships of the RSN have the prefix RSS (Republic of Singapore Ship).
The RSN traces its origins to the Royal Navy in the 1930s with only two patrol craft. The Straits Settlements Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve was established on 20 April 1934 and in 1941 became the Singaporean division of the Malayan Volunteer Reserve during World War II.
In 1948, the Malayan Force was raised by the Singapore government and was later granted the title of the Royal Malayan Navy in 1952 in recognition of its services in action during the Malayan Emergency.
On 16 September 1963, Singapore was admitted as a state of Malaysia under the terms of confederation and the Royal Malayan Navy was renamed the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN). The Singapore division of

Christopher Moody (1694–1722) was an 18th-century pirate who held a policy of no quarter (no sparing of lives). After he was captured, he was hanged at Cape Coast Castle in Cabo Corso, Ghana (now Cape Coast, Ghana).
Moody may have previously been a member of Bartholomew Roberts' crew. He is believed to have pirated off the coast of North and South Carolina sometime between 1713 and 1718.
Moody is largely remembered for his distinct Jolly Roger flag. Instead of the traditional white on black, Moody's Jolly Roger is gold on red. It also has an hourglass with wings, to express to his victims that their time to live was flying away. In the middle is a white arm holding a dagger. In addition, blood-red pennants were often tied to the ship's mainmast to show deadly intent.
While the red Jolly Roger is distinctive, it is not unique. It is believed that the origin of the red flag is likely that English privateers flew the red jack by order of the Admiralty in 1694. When the War of Spanish Succession ended in 1714, many privateers turned to piracy and some retained the red flag, as red symbolized blood. No matter how much seamen dreaded the black pirate standard, all prayed they never

Gan Ning (died around 220) was a military general serving under the warlord Sun Quan during the late Han Dynasty period of Chinese history. He was born in Linjiang, Ba Commandery (present-day Zhong County, Chongqing).
As a youth, Gan served under the warlord Liu Yan but revolted when the latter died. After his rebellion failed, he led a band of bandits carrying bows and crossbows to wander the lands. They wore bells about their waists and bone ornaments in their hair as a mark, causing commoners to either run or hide when they heard the ring of bells. He kept looting, robbing and killing until he decided to pursue scholarly arts in his twenties. After reading some literary texts by different philosophers, Gan sought the warlord Liu Biao's patronage, but was rejected for his background.
Instead, he went to join Liu Biao's general Huang Zu, who was a local gentry and warlord of Jiangxia. Huang did not trust him and gave him an unworthy position. In an attack against Huang by Sun Quan's general, Ling Cao, at the Battle of Xiakou, Huang was nearly killed, and amidst the chaos and disarray, Gan fired a stray arrow that killed Ling, resulting in the safe retreat of Huang. However, the

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, with hyphen, from 1935 to 1985)—also known as 20th Century Fox, 20th Century Fox Pictures, or simply 20th or Fox—is one of the six major American film studios as of 2011. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
The company was founded on May 31, 1935, as the result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Fox in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz.
Twentieth Century Fox's most popular film franchises include Star Wars, Ice Age, Rio, X-Men, Die Hard, Predator, Planet of the Apes, Home Alone, Alien, plus famous TV shows such as M*A*S*H, The X-Files, Cops, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad!, and 24. Among the most famous actresses to come out of this studio were Shirley Temple, who was 20th Century Fox's first film star, Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. The studio also contracted the first African-American cinema star, Dorothy Dandridge.
20th Century Fox is a member

Barry Charles Diller (born February 2, 1942) is the Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp and the media executive responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting.
Diller was born and raised in San Francisco, California, the son of Reva (née Addison) and Michael Diller. He began his career through a family connection in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency after dropping out of UCLA after one semester. He was hired as an assistant by Elton Rule, then west coast head of ABC who was promoted to network President at the same time Diller went to work for him in 1964, taking him on to New York, and Diller was soon placed in charge of negotiating broadcast rights to feature films. He was promoted to Vice President of Development in 1965. In this position, Diller created the ABC Movie of the Week, pioneering the concept of the made-for-television movie through a regular series of 90-minute films produced exclusively for television.
Diller served for ten years as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Paramount Pictures Corporation starting in 1974. With Diller at the helm, the studio produced hit television programs such as Laverne &

Christopher Condent (1690s – died 1770), born in Plymouth in Devon, was an English pirate who led the return to the Eastern Seas. He and his crew fled New Providence in 1718, when Woodes Rogers became governor of the island.
On a trip across the Atlantic Ocean, an Indian member of the crew, who was severely beaten and mistreated, threatened to ignite the ship's powder magazine. Condent swiftly jumped into the hold, and shot the Indian in the face. Purportedly, the crew hacked the body to pieces, and the gunner slashed open his stomach, tore out his heart, boiled it, and ate it. Further into the voyage, the crew captured a merchant vessel. Roughly half of the crew sailed away, while the other half chose Condent as their captain.
At the Cape Verde Islands, Condent and his men captured a Portuguese wine vessel, a squadron of small ships, and a Dutch war ship. Condent kept the warship, and named it The Flying Dragon. The Flying Dragon then cruised the Brazilian coast, and Condent took more ships, occasionally torturing Portuguese prisoners by cutting off their ears and noses.
Condent took much more "booty" when he reached the African coast. In June or July 1719, he reached Madagascar.

Sir Christopher Hatton (1540 – 20 November 1591) was an English politician, Lord Chancellor of England and a favourite of Elizabeth I of England.
Sir Christopher Hatton was the second son of William Hatton (d. 28 August 1546) of Holdenby, Northamptonshire, and his second wife, Alice Saunders, the daughter of Lawrence Saunders (d.1544) of Harrington, Northamptonshire, and his wife, Alice Brokesby, the daughter of Robert Brokesby (d. 28 March 1531) of Shoby, Leicestershire, and Alice Shirley. Through his mother, Alice Saunders, Sir Christopher Hatton was thus a descendant of King Henry II by his mistress, Ida de Tony. The date of the death of Hatton's mother is not known, nor whether she remarried after the death of William Hatton. On his father's side, it is said that the pedigree of Hatton is 'traced beyond records'. In the reign of Henry VII, Henry Hatton of Quisty Birches in Cheshire married Elizabeth, the sole heiress of William Holdenby of Holdenby, Northamptonshire. Their son, John Hatton, settled at Holdenby, and had three sons, of whom Sir Christopher Hatton's father, William, was the eldest. Sir Christopher Hatton is said to have had two brothers, Thomas and William, and a

The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company was a shipping line established in 1823. It served cross-channel routes between Britain and Ireland for over a century. For 70 of those years it transported the mail. It was 'wound-up' by a select committee of the House of Lords in 1922 and finally liquidated in 1930.
The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company began in Dublin in 1822 as Charles Wye Williams & Company; Williams is one of the unrecognised pioneers of steam navigation. His company initially operated steam ships between Dublin and Liverpool. In 1826, the line added service to London and Belfast. Later, service was also provided between Glasgow and Belfast. Transatlantic service to New York started with the Royal William departing Liverpool on 5 July 1838, becoming the first steamer to depart for an Atlantic crossing from the River Mersey. In January, 1839, they were awarded a contract to provide a night mail service from Holyhead; their ships docked at the Admiralty Pier in Holyhead. In 1843, the company took over the routes of the St. George Steam Packet Company, extending service to Wales. The Company also operated smaller steamers on the River Shannon.
Up until 1850, the British

Ernesto Bertarelli (born 22 September 1965) is a Swiss-Italian billionaire and entrepreneur.
Together with his extended family, Bertarelli was ranked 81st in the 2011 annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people compiled and published by Forbes magazine, The family's wealth was estimated at US$10.6 billion.
Born in Rome, his family moved to Switzerland in 1977. He graduated from Babson College in 1989, and earned an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1993.
His father founded Serono, a pharmaceutical company that he moved from Rome to Switzerland. Bertarelli became CEO and Deputy Chairman in 1996, and with his sister Dona inherited ownership in 1998 on the death of his father. Changing the company's focus from pharmaceuticals to biotechnology, revenues increased from $809 million in 1996 to $2.8 billion in 2006. The company gained fame from its discovery of a natural hormone used in the treatment of female infertility.
Bertarelli instructed advisers in 2006, agreeing to sell the company to Merck KGaA of Germany in January 2007 for US$13.3 billion, forming the new company Merck-Serono. He and his sister split a combined $9 billion stake.
Between 2002 and 2009, he served as a board

Gentius (Greek: Γένθιος; ruled 181–168 BC) was the last Illyrian king of the Ardiaean State. The name appears to derive from PIE *g'en- "to beget", cognate to Latin gens, gentis "kin, clan, race". He was the son of Pleuratus III, a king who kept relations with Rome very strong. Gentius's principal city was Shkodra, the capital of Ardiaean State at the time.
In 180 BC, during his early reign the Dalmatians and Daorson declared themselves independent from Gentius's rule and the city of Rhizon abandoned him prior to his defeat, receiving immunity from the Romans. He married the daughter of the Dardanian King Monunius.
In 171 BC, Gentius was allied with the Romans against the Macedonians, but in 169 BC he changed sides and allied himself with Perseus of Macedon. The southernmost city of the Ardiaean State of Gentius was Lissus, a situation established sine the First Illyrian War. He arrested two Roman legati, accusing them of not coming as emissaries but as spies. Gentius destroyed the cities of Apollonia and Dyrrhachium, which were allied with Rome. In 168 BC, he was defeated at Scodra by a Roman force under L. Anicius Gallus, in only twenty or thirty days, and in 167 brought to Rome

Admiral Sir Henry Morgan (Harri Morgan in Welsh; ca. 1635 – 25 August 1688) was an Admiral of the British Royal Navy, a privateer, and a pirate who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements. He was one of the most notorious and successful privateers in history, and one of the most ruthless who worked in the Spanish Main.
Henry Morgan was the eldest son of Robert Morgan, a squire of Llanrumney Hall just outside of Cardiff then part of Monmouthshire. He also had a sister Catherine. An entry in the Bristol Apprentice Books showing "Servants to Foreign Plantations" 9 February 1655, included "Henry Morgan of Abergavenny, Labourer, Bound to Timothy Tounsend of Bristol, Cutler, for three years, to serve in Barbados on the like Condiciouns."
Henry's father Robert Morgan (born c.1615) was a descendant from a cadet branch of the ‘Tredegar Morgans’ and had two brothers, Thomas and Edward. Major-General Sir Thomas Morgan (1st Baronet 1604-79) served in the Commonwealth forces during English civil war from 1642-9, was Governor of Gloucester 1645, fought in Flanders, wounded, and in 1661 retired to his estate in Kynnersley, Herts. He was

The Inman Line which operated from 1850 until its 1893 absorption into American Line, was one of the three largest 19th century British passenger shipping companies on the North Atlantic, along with the White Star Line and Cunard Line . The firm's formal name for much of its history was the Liverpool, Philadelphia and New York Steamship Company, but it was also variously known as the Liverpool and Philadelphia Steamship Company, as Inman Steamship Company, Limited, and, for the last few years before absorption into the American Line, as the Inman and International Steamship Company.
By embracing new technology, the Inman Line was the first to show that unsubsidized ocean liners could profitably operate on the North Atlantic. With its first steamer, City of Glasgow of 1850, Inman led the drive to replace wood-hulled paddle steamers with iron-hulled ships equipped with screw propulsion. In 1852, Inman also established that steerage passengers could be transported in steamships. Inman's City of Paris of 1866 was the first screw liner that could match the speed of the paddlers. By 1870, Inman landed more passengers in New York than any other line. In 1886, the American-owned

Norddeutsche Lloyd (NDL) (North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on February 20, 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic development of Bremen and Bremerhaven. On September 1, 1970, the company merged with Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.
The German shipping company North German Lloyd (NDL) was founded by the Bremen merchants Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann on February 20, 1857, after the dissolution of the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, a joint German-American enterprise. The new shipping company had no association with the British maritime classification society Lloyd's Register; in the mid-19th century, "Lloyd" was used as a term for a shipping company.
H.H. Meier became NDL's first Chairman of the Supervisory Board, and Crüsemann became the first director of the company (German Aktiengesellschaft - AG). Crüsemann was in charge of both cargo services and passenger transport, which, as a result of emigration, was growing significantly. The company was

Paul Watson (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian animal rights and environmental activist, who founded and is president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a direct action group devoted to marine conservation.
The Toronto native joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing in 1969. He was an early and influential member of Greenpeace, crewed and skippered for it, and later was a board member. Watson argued for a strategy of direct action that conflicted with the Greenpeace interpretation of nonviolence, was ousted from the board in 1977, and subsequently left the organization. That same year, he formed Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The group is the subject of a reality show, Whale Wars.
He also promotes veganism, voluntary human population control, and a biocentric, rather than anthropocentric, worldview.
Watson's activities have led to legal action from authorities in countries including Canada, Norway, Costa Rica, and Japan. After skipping bail following an arrest in Germany, on August 9, 2012 Interpol issued a red notice requesting his arrest. A second red notice was issued on September 14, 2012, this time at request from Japan.
Paul Watson was born in

Thomas James Perkins (born 1932) is an American businessman, capitalist, and was one of the founders of leading venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Perkins received a B.S. in EECS (course 6) from MIT in 1953. He earned an MBA from Harvard in 1957. While attending MIT, Perkins joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity.
In 1963, he was invited by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard to become the administrative head of the research department at Hewlett-Packard. He was the first general manager of HP's computer divisions, credited with helping shepherd HP's entry into the minicomputer business. During the 1960s, he also started University Laboratories, which was later merged into Spectra-Physics.
In 1973, with Eugene Kleiner, he founded Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the first Sand Hill Road venture capital firms. Later, Frank Caufield and Brook Byers joined the firm, eventually becoming named partners. Perkins served as a director of Applied Materials, Compaq, Corning Glass, Genentech, Hewlett-Packard, and Philips Electronics. He served as the only chairman of Tandem Computers, from its founding in 1974 until its 1997 merger with Compaq. Perkins was also chairman of

British India Steam Navigation Company was formed in 1856 as the Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation Company. The company had been formed out of Mackinnon, Mackenzie & Co, a trading partnership of the Scots William Mackinnon and Robert Mackenzie, to carry mail between Calcutta and Rangoon. It became British India SN Co in 1862. Under the hand of Lord Inchcape (James Mackay) who had become chairman in 1913, the company became part of the P&O group of companies in 1914 through a complex amalgamation, but continued with its own identity and organisation for another nearly 60 years until 1972, when it was entirely absorbed into P&O.
As one of the largest shipowners of all time, the company owned more than 500 ships and managed 150 more for other owners. At its height in 1922, BI had more than 160 ships in the fleet, many built on Clydeside, Scotland. The main shipping routes of the line were: Britain to India, Australia, Kenya, Tanganyika. The company ran services from India to Pakistan, Ceylon, Bay of Bengal, Singapore, Malaya, Java, Thailand, Japan, Persian Gulf, East Africa and South Africa. BI had a long history of service to the British and Indian governments through trooping and

Cord Widderich (alternative spelling: Kort Wiederich) (died 1447) was a pirate active during political conflicts between Dithmarschen and North Frisia in the early fifteenth century. He lived during the times of Klaus Störtebeker and the Victual Brothers, but was not part of their movement.
North Frisia aided Holstein when it declared war on Dithmarschen in 1404. After Dithmarschen defeated Holstein, a peace treaty prohibited further military campaigns. Instead, Cord Widderich and other Dithmarsians took revenge on their Frisian neighbors via piracy.
In 1407, Cord Widderich and his men from Lunden, Germany occupied Eiderstedt and made the Pellworm church tower their base for looting the surrounding villages and tricking ships into stranding. Only when the church tower swayed with the wind and a storm threatened to topple the building did Widderich and his men leave North Frisia for good.
During his retreat from Pellworm, Widderich carried off a number of treasures from the church. The most famous part of his booty was a bronze baptismal font from the thirteenth century, which he gave as a consecration gift to the newly built Saint Clemens church of Büsum, Dithmarschen, where it

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral (1540 – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the second circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580. He died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico.
His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque, Draque being the Spanish pronunciation of "Drake". His name in Latinised form was Franciscus Draco (Francis the Dragon). King Philip II was said to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats, about £4 million (US$6.5M) by modern standards, for his life.
Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, in February or March 1544 at the earliest, when his namesake godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford was age 17. Although Drake's birth is not formally recorded, it is known that he was born while the Six Articles were in force. "Drake was two and twenty when he obtained the command of the Judith"

Lars Gathenhielm (1689–1718) was a Swedish merchant and privateer.
Lars Gathenhielm was born on the Gatan estate in Onsala Parish in Halland. His parents were the sea captain Anders Börjesson Gathe and his wife Kerstin Larsdotter, daughter of a mill owner in Hjälm, Fjärås Parish. Before his knighthood in 1715he was known as Lars Andersson Gathe or Lasse i Gatan.
To protect Swedish shipping from pirates and to harm the enemy, the government of Charles XII of Sweden began a maritime campaign, and in June 1710 gave Lars Gathe from Onsala permission to act as a privateer and attack ships from enemy-nations such as Denmark and Russia.
He gained a great deal of early success with his galleon Lilla Jägaren (The Little Hunter). The hijacked ships increased in numbers and many of Onsalas sailors were quickly re-educated to work the privateer ships. Lars suffered from a hip injury that made him dependent on crutches to walk and therefore probably didn't spend much time on the sea himself, but rather directed the work from Gothenburg. His strength was probably as shipowner while the practical matters were handled by his serfs. Lars was a few times accused of pure piracy (hitting Swedish ships

Sir Malcolm Campbell (11 March 1885 – 31 December 1948) was an English racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times during the 1920s and 1930s using vehicles called Blue Bird. His son, Donald Campbell, carried on the family tradition by holding both land speed and water speed records.
Malcolm Campbell was born in Chislehurst, Kent in 1885, the only son of William Campbell, a Hatton Garden diamond seller. He attended the independent Uppingham School. In Germany, learning the diamond trade, he gained an interest in motorbikes and races. Returning to England, he worked for two years at Lloyd's of London for no pay, then for another year at one pound a week. Between 1906–8, he won all three London to Lakes End Trials (motorbike races). In 1910 he began racing cars at Brooklands. He christened his car Blue Bird, painting it blue, after seeing the play The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck at the Haymarket Theatre. He married Marjorie D. Knott in 1913 but divorced two years later. He served in World War I in the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment and in the RAF. He married Dorothy Evelyn Whittall in 1920 in Westminster

Murat Reis the Elder (Turkish: Koca Murat Reis, c.1534-1638) was an Albanian privateer and admiral of the Ottoman Navy. He is regarded as one of the most important Barbary corsairs.
Born into an Albanian family in Rhodes or Albania in 1534 he began his career when he joined the crew of Turgut Reis at a very young age. He also fought alongside Piri Reis in several expeditions. In 1534 Murat Reis accompanied Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha to Constantinople where they were received by Suleiman I and appointed to take command of the Ottoman fleet. While in Constantinople, Murat Reis participated in the construction of new warships at the naval arsenal on the Golden Horn.
Murat Reis took part in all of the early naval campaigns of Turgut Reis. On September 25 and 26, 1538, he was assigned with the task of preventing the ships of the Holy League under the command of Andrea Doria from landing at Preveza, and he successfully repulsed them from the shoreline. On September 28, he took part in the main combat and played an important role in the Ottoman victory at the Battle of Preveza, where he fought along with Turgut Reis in the center-rear wing of the Ottoman fleet which had a Y shaped battle

Pedro Gilbert or Don Pedro Gibert (c. 1800 – June 11, 1835) was an early 19th century pirate, who was one of the few remaining pirates continuing to raid shipping on the Atlantic coast. Gilbert held the distinction of taking part in the last recorded act of piracy in Atlantic waters, although the distinction of "last American pirate" belongs to Nathaniel Gordon who was executed in 1862 for attempting to smuggle African slaves in violation of the U.S. Piracy Law of 1820.
A former privateer in the service of the Colombian government, Gilbert began raiding American merchant vessels off the eastern coast of Florida with his schooner the Panda in early 1832. On September 21, 1832, off the coast of what is now Stuart, Florida, Gilbert chased then boarded the Mexican, an American brig bound from Salem to Rio de Janeiro carrying $20,000 in silver. Following the crew's surrender, a crew member asked Gilbert what was to be done with their captives to which the pirate captain reportedly remarked "Dead cats don't mew. You know what to do."
Locking the crew inside the focsle, Gilbert's crew ransacked the ship looting the Mexican's stores. Slashing the rigging and sails, the pirates filled the

Joseph Baker [Joseph Boulanger] (died May 9, 1800) was a Canadian pirate, known primarily for the failed mutiny and hijacking of the merchant schooner Eliza in 1800.
Although little is known of his early life, Baker signed aboard the West Indies bound merchant schooner Eliza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Soon after leaving port, Baker seized control of the ship with two other crewmen, Peter LaCroix and Joseph Berrouse, attacking the first mate during night watch and throwing him overboard. Wounding the Captain, a William Wheland, the three held him hostage while they discussed how to sell the cargo. As none of the sailors were able to navigate the ship, they accepted an offer from Wheland to sail them to the "Spanish Main" so they could rendezvous with other pirates in order to sell the cargo at a port.
Although promising to spare Wheland's life in exchange for sailing the ship to a safe haven, Baker reportedly bragged to LaCroix and Berrouse that he planned to kill him once in sight of land. After a time however, Wheland managed to surprise his captors, locking LaCroix and Berrouse in the ship's hold when they were below decks taking inventory of the ship's cargo. Sneaking up

Thomas Cocklyn was an 18th-century English pirate, known primarily for his association and partnership with Howell Davis and Oliver La Buze. He was reportedly elected captain "due to his brutality and ignorance" when first sailing from New Providence in 1717.
On April 1, 1719, Cocklyn was a participant in the capture of the West African-bound English slave ship the Bird Galley at the mouth of the Sierra Leone River. The three pirate captains celebrated their victory on board the ship for nearly a month before releasing its captain, William Snelgrave, and giving him the Bristol Snow and the remaining cargo left from the pirates' week-long occupation of the ship.
Due to disagreements between the captains, the three parted ways on May 10, 1719. Subsequently, records of Cocklyn's career and life after 1719 are undocumented.

Wimund was a bishop who became a seafaring warlord adventurer in the years after 1147. His story is passed down to us by 12th-century English historian William of Newburgh in his Historia rerum anglicarum, Book I, Chapter 24 entitled "Of bishop Wimund, his life unbecoming a bishop, and how he was deprived of his sight".
William tells us that Wimund was "born in the most obscure spot in England." He was educated at Furness Abbey, founded 1123–1127 by the future Stephen I of England. Wimund may have been a member of the party sent from Furness to found a house at Rushen on the Isle of Man by request of Amlaíb son of Gofraid Cróbh bhan, the King of Mann and the Isles, in 1134.
King Amlaíb granted the monks of Furness the right to elect the Bishop of the Isles, and it appears that Wimund was elected to the see during the time of Thurstan (II), Archbishop of York. Thurstan died in early 1140, so that Wimund became Bishop of the Isles in the period 1134–1140. This was a very rapid rise for a young man of apparently obscure origins.
However, as William of Newburgh tells us later, Wimund in time claimed to be the son of the Mormaer of Moray. William, and some later writers, doubted

The British East India Company was an English and later (from 1707) British joint-stock company formed for pursuing trade with the East Indies but which ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent.
The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea and opium. The Company was granted a Royal Charter in 1600, making it the oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies. Shares of the company were owned by wealthy merchants and aristocrats. The government owned no shares and had only indirect control. The Company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858 when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the new British Raj.
The Company was dissolved in 1874 as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act passed one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigal, powerless and obsolete. Its

Thomas Anstis (died April 1723) was an early 18th century pirate, who served under Captain Howell Davis and Captain Bartholomew Roberts, before setting up on his own account, raiding shipping on the eastern coast of the American colonies and in the Caribbean during what is often referred to as the "Golden Age of Piracy".
Anstis is first recorded as a member of the sloop Buck, which sailed from Providence, Rhode Island in 1718. During the course of the voyage, Anstis conspired with six other crew members to attempt a mutiny aboard the ship which, upon doing so, stated their intentions to sail southward as pirates. Howell Davis was elected captain. After Davis' death Bartholomew Roberts replaced him as captain, and eventually had several ships. Anstis commanded one of these, the brigantine Good Fortune.
During the night of April 18, 1721, Roberts' ships headed for Africa, but Anstis and his crew in the Good Fortune slipped away in the night and continued to operate in the Caribbean. Between Hispaniola and Jamaica, the Good Fortune plundered two vessels. Aboard one, the Irwin, Anstis's crew committed gang rape and murder against a female passenger. Afterwards they stopped to careen

Alinghi is the syndicate set up by Ernesto Bertarelli, racing under the colors of the Société Nautique de Genève, to challenge for the America's Cup. Bertarelli had raced several smaller yachts named Alinghi previously, but 2003 was his first attempt at the America's Cup. Alinghi challenged for and won the 2003 America's Cup in Auckland New Zealand and successfully defended it at the 2007 America's Cup in Valencia, Spain. Alinghi lost the America's Cup to the Golden Gate Yacht Club and their team BMW Oracle Racing in a Deed of Gift match in Valencia, Spain in February 2010.
For the 2003 event, Team New Zealand as the holder of the America's Cup, in consultation with Prada, the Challenger of Record, removed the nationality rule that stipulated that all of the crew members must be nationals of the challenging syndicate.
Alinghi took full advantage of this rule change and hired many of the world's top America's Cup sailors particularly from New Zealand. New Zealanders saw the defection of key members of Team New Zealand to Alinghi as an act of disloyalty to their home country—understandable against a background of strong nationwide public support for Team New Zealand that they saw as

The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence (CDF) commands the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (CA). The CA is therefore subordinate to the CDF, but is also directly responsible to the Minister for Defence. Although Australian soldiers have been involved in a number of minor and major conflicts throughout its history, only in World War II has Australian territory come under direct attack.
The history of the Australian Army can be divided into two periods:
During its history the Australian Army has fought a large number of major wars, including: Second Boer War (1899–1902), First World War (1914–1918), the Second World War (1939–1945), Korea War (1950–1953), Malayan Emergency (1950–1960), Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation (1962–1966), Vietnam War (1962–1973) and more recently in Afghanistan (2001 – present) and Iraq (2003–2009). However, since 1947 it has also been involved in many peacekeeping operations, usually under the auspices of the United Nations. The largest one began in

Bartholomew Roberts (17 May 1682 – 10 February 1722), born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate who raided ships off America and West Africa between 1719 and 1722. He was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy, as measured by vessels captured, taking over 470 prizes in his career. He is also known as Black Bart (Welsh: Barti Ddu), but this name was never used in his lifetime, and also risks confusion with Black Bart of the American West.
Bartholomew Roberts was born in 1682 in Casnewydd-Bach, or Little Newcastle, between Fishguard and Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, Wales. His name was originally John Roberts, and his father was most likely George Roberts. It's not clear why Roberts changed his name from John to Bartholomew, but pirates often adopted aliases, and he may have chosen that name after the well-known buccaneer Bartholomew Sharp. He is thought to have gone to sea when he was 13 in 1695 but there is no further record of him until 1718, when he was mate of a Barbados sloop.
In 1719 he was third mate on the slave ship Princess, under Captain Abraham Plumb. In early June that year the Princess was anchored at Anomabu, then spelled Annamaboa, which is situated

Klein Henszlein [Klaus Hanslein] (died 1573) was a German pirate from 1560 to 1573 who raided shipping in the North Sea until his defeat and capture by a fleet from Hamburg. Taken back to Hamburg, Henszlein and his men were paraded though the city streets before being beheaded; their heads were then impaled on stakes. In a later account, the executioner described how he "flicked off" the heads of the thirty three pirates (not including Henszlein) in only 45 minutes, then proceeding to behead the bodies of those pirates killed during their capture. He later claimed to have been "standing in blood so deep that it well nigh in his shoes did creep."

P&O Nedlloyd Container Line Limited was an Anglo-Dutch worldwide ocean-going container shipping line, with dual headquarters in London and Rotterdam. The company was formed in 1997 by the merger of the container-shipping interests of the leading Dutch transportation company Royal Nedlloyd (Nedlloyd Line) and the British maritime shipping giant P&O Group (P&O Containers). The company was the first large merger in the fragmented global container shipping market and is commonly believed to have initiated the current industry consolidation. The merger created the shipping equivalent to other large Anglo-Dutch cooperations such as Shell, Unilever and Reed Elsevier.
In 2004, Royal Nedlloyd bought the remaining shares from P&O and the company was listed as Royal P&O Nedlloyd on the Dutch stock exchange. Royal P&O Nedlloyd was acquired by the Danish A.P. Moller-Maersk Group (Maersk) in 2005 and was combined with their existing container shipping business Maersk-Sealand to form Maersk Line. As Sealand was the USA based historic innovator of container shipping, Maersk Line subsequently embodies the Dutch, British as well as Danish and American merchant marine legacy.
The company, P&O

Trafigura Beheer BV is a Dutch multinational commodity trading company founded in 1993 trading in base metals and energy, including oil. In 2008, the company had equity of more than $2 billion and a turnover of $73 billion that generated $440 million of profit. By 2011, its revenue had increased to $121.5 billion and its profits to $1.11 billion.
It operates from 55 offices in 36 countries. It is the world's third largest private oil and metals trader after Vitol and Glencore. Trafigura was set up by Claude Dauphin and Eric de Turckheim. It split off from a group of companies managed by Marc Rich in 1993. Dauphin owns less than 20% of the company, with the rest owned by 500 senior staff.
Trafigura has been named or involved in several scandals since its creation.
The company was named in the Iraq Oil-for-Food Scandal in connection with the Essex, a Liberian registered "turbine-tanker" that had UN approval to load Iraqi crude at Iraq’s main export terminal at Mina al-Bakr. The tanker was chartered by Trafigura Beheer BV and according to its captain, Theofanis Chiladakis, the Essex was at least twice 'topped off' with an extra 272,000 barrels of crude after UN monitors had signed off

The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company or White Star Line of Boston Packets, more commonly known as just White Star Line, was a highly prominent British shipping company, today most famous for its ill-fated vessel, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of Titanic's sister ship Britannic. In 1934 the line merged with its chief rival, Cunard Line, which operated as a separate entity until 2005 and is now part of Carnival Corporation & PLC. As a lasting reminder of the White Star Line, modern Cunard ships use the term White Star Service to describe the impeccable level of customer care expected of the company.
The first company bearing the name White Star Line was founded in Liverpool, England by John Pilkington and Henry Wilson, and was focused on the UK–Australia trade, which had increased following the discovery of gold there. The fleet initially consisted of chartered sailing ships, RMS Tayleur, Blue Jacket, White Star, Red Jacket, Ellen, Ben Nevis, Emma, Mermaid and Iowa. The fate of Tayleur, the largest ship of its day, haunted the company for years, for it was wrecked on its maiden voyage to Australia at Lambay Island, near Ireland. The company acquired its first steamship in

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers. Established in 1930, it is the largest independent oceanographic research institution in the U.S., with staff and students numbering about 1,000. The Institution is organized into five departments, four interdisciplinary institutes—ocean life, coastal ocean, ocean and climate change, deep ocean exploration—the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research, and a marine policy center. Its shore-based facilities are located in the village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and a mile and a half away on the Quissett Campus. The bulk of the Institution's funding comes from grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation and other government agencies, augmented by foundations and private donations.
In an interdisciplinary atmosphere that nurtures discovery, WHOI scientists, engineers, and students collaborate to explore the frontiers of knowledge about planet Earth. They develop theories, test ideas, build seagoing instruments, and collect data in

Sir George Newnes, 1st Baronet (13 March 1851 Matlock Bath, Derbyshire – 9 June 1910 Lynton, north Devon) was a publisher and editor in England.
His father, Thomas Mold Newnes, was a Congregational church minister at the Glenorchy Chapel, Matlock. He was educated at Silcoates School and then at Shireland Hall, Warwickshire, and the City of London School. In 1875 he married Priscilla Hillyard.
In 1867 he entered commerce in the "fancy goods" trade, working in London and Manchester.
He began his career in publishing in 1881 when he founded Tit-Bits. The magazine was initially published in Manchester, containing extracts from books and other publications. He funded the magazine by opening a vegetarian restaurant in Manchester. The addition of competitions increased the readership of the periodical, and in 1884 Newnes moved publication to London. He began to work with W T Stead, with whom he founded the Review of Reviews in 1890. Tit-Bits reached a circulation of 700,000 by the end of the 19th century. It paved the way for popular journalism — the Daily Mail was founded by Alfred Harmsworth, a contributor to Tit-Bits, and the Daily Express was launched by Arthur Pearson, who worked at

Joseph Barrell (1739-1804) was a merchant in Boston, Massachusetts in the 18th century. During the American Revolution he owned ships commissioned as privateers, such as the Vengeance, ca.1779. In 1792 Barrell was "elected to the board" of Massachusetts branch of the newly established Bank of the United States, along with "George Cabot, Jonathan Mason Jr., ... and Fisher Ames."
As a merchant Barrell imported goods from overseas. For instance, the Hannah, commanded by William Haydon, sailed in May 1780, probably from Amsterdam, loaded with cargo for Barrell in Boston: "German steel, ... china ware, earthen pots, house brushes, spices, linens, velvets, writing paper, children's toys (among the rest a furnished kitchen valued at over six florins), wafers, flat-irons, tea and tea-kettles and window-glass." Barrell's notable wealth also derived from his activities as "contractor to the French fleet."
Around 1787, "a group of merchants led by Bostonian Joseph Barrell, having read the account of Captain Cook's third voyage, believed that great profits could be made by trading sea-otter furs, highly prized in China, for tea and other wares. They financed and arranged the venture of the

The BW Group, previously Bergesen Worldwide is an international maritime group that through its subsidiaries operates within the tanker, gas and offshore segments, with a fleet of more than 150 owned, part-owned or controlled vessels. The group has seven business areas: crude tankers, product tankers, chemical tankers, LNG (liquefied natural gas) carriers, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) carriers, offshore floating production vessels (FPSO) and offshore technology (mooring systems for FPSOs and offshore LNG terminals). The company was created as a merger between Bergesen d.y. and World-Wide Shipping. Operations are performed by subsidiaries, with BW Gas and BW Offshore being publicly listed companies. BW Gas delisted in 2009. Main offices are in Oslo and Singapore while the holding company is registered in Bermuda.
The BW Group is one of the world’s leading maritime groups, comprising BW Gas, BW Maritime and BW Offshore. BW Gas was listed in Oslo in October 2005 as a pure gas shipping company with the BW Group retaining a majority share. BW Offshore followed suit by being listed in May 2006. The other assets remain in private ownership. In 2009, BW Gas was privatised. BW Shipping

John Rackham (21 December 1682 – 18 November 1720), commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas during the early 18th century (Rackham is often spelled as Rackam or Rackum in historical documentation). His nickname was derived from the calico clothing he wore.
Active towards the end (1717–1720) of the "golden age of piracy" (1690–1730) Rackham is most remembered for two things: the design of his Jolly Roger flag, a skull with crossed swords, which contributed to the popularization of the design, and for having two female crew members (Mary Read and Rackham's lover Anne Bonny).
After deposing Charles Vane from his captaincy, Rackham cruised the Leeward Islands, Jamaica Channel and Windward Passage. He accepted a pardon some time in 1719 and moved to New Providence where he met Anne Bonny, who was married to James Bonny. When Rackham returned to piracy in 1720, by stealing a British sloop, Bonny joined him. Their new crew included Mary Read. After a short run he was captured by pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet in 1720, before being hanged in November of the same year in Spanish Town, Jamaica.
Little is known of Rackham's upbringing or early

The Canadian Forces (CF) (French: les Forces canadiennes; FC), officially the Canadian Armed Forces (French: Forces armées canadiennes), is the unified armed force of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."
This unified institution consists of the sea, land and air command elements:Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Personnel may belong to either the Regular Force, Primary Reserve, Supplementary Reserve, Cadet Organizations Administration and Training Service, or the Canadian Rangers. The Department of National Defence acts as the civilian support system for the Canadian Forces.
The Canadian Forces is overseen by the Armed Forces Council, chaired by the Chief of the Defence Staff. The Commander-in-Chief is the reigning Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who is represented by the Governor General of Canada.
Since the Second World War, Canadian defence policy has consistently stressed three overarching objectives:
During the Cold War, a principal focus of Canadian defence policy

Cheng I (1765 – 1807) (鄭一, pinyin: Zhèng Yī, Cantonese: Jihng Yāt, also romanised as Zheng Yi) was one of the most powerful Chinese pirates along the Chinese coast during the 19th century. He and his wife Ching Shih, a prostitute whom he fell in love with, captured Cheung Po Tsai who according to legend became her lover. Cheung was later adopted by them. After Cheng I died on November 16, 1807, Ching Shih took over the pirating business.

Jacques de Sores was a French pirate who attacked and burnt Havana, Cuba in 1555.
Other than his attack on Havana, little is known of de Sores. He was nicknamed "The Exterminating Angel" ("L'Ange Exterminateur"). He was the leader of a band of Huguenot pirates and a lieutenant or former lieutenant of another French pirate, François le Clerc, who was called "Pegleg" or "Jambe de Bois" on account of his wooden leg. Le Clerc and Sores had set out from France in 1553 with three royal ships and a number of privateers under commission from Francis I of France who was envious of the riches returning to Spain from the New World. Le Clerc had raided Santiago de Cuba in 1554, and some accounts mention a raid on Santiago de Cuba by de Sores, although whether this was as part of the attack by le Clerc is not clear. He may have used Cayo Romano and Cayo Coco in the archipelago of Jardines del Rey adjacent to the northern Cuban coast as a base of operations.
Details of the attack on Havana are also sketchy: the number of ships that de Sores used in the attack varies in different accounts from 2 to 20. Regardless of the number of ships involved, de Sores had little trouble in capturing the

John Julian (died 1733) was the first recorded black pirate to operate in the New World, as the pilot of the ship Whydah.
Julian was a half-blood Miskito Indian who joined Samuel Bellamy early in his brief career. He eventually piloted the Whydah, which was the leading ship of Bellamy's fleet, when he was only 16 years old. Julian was one of 30 to 50 people of African descent in the pirate crew — all were treated as equals.
Julian's life became more difficult after he survived the Whydah wreck in 1717. He was jailed in Boston but apparently never indicted. He was likely sold into slavery, the "Julian the Indian" bought by John Quincy — whose grandson, President John Quincy Adams, became a staunch abolitionist.
A purported "unruly slave," Julian the Indian was sold to another owner and tried often to escape. During one attempt, he killed a bounty hunter who was trying to catch him. He was executed in 1733.

John Taylor was a pirate who lived in the early 18th century.
At Reunion Island (off the coast of Madagascar) in April 1721, he together with Olivier Levasseur captured the most valuable prize in pirate history, variously described as "Nostra Senora della Cabo", "Nostra Senhora do Cabo", or "Nossa Senhora do Cabo" (Our Lady of the Cape).

The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa. It now forms part of the Council for World Mission (CWM).
Proposals for the Missionary Society began in 1794 after a Baptist minister, John Ryland, received word from William Carey, the pioneer British Baptist missionary who had recently moved to Calcutta, about the need to spread Christianity. Carey suggested that Ryland join forces with others along the non-denominational lines of the Anti-Slavery Society to design a society that could prevail against the difficulties that evangelicals often faced when spreading the Word. This aimed to overcome the difficulties that establishment of overseas missions had faced. It had frequently proved hard to raise the finance because evangelicals belonged to many different denominations and churches; all too often their missions would only reach a small group of people and be hard to sustain.
The society aimed to be more successful by creating a forum where evangelicals could work together, giving

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is a company operating cruise ships, headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida. It began operations in 1966 under the name Norwegian Caribbean Line. The company is best known for its Freestyle Cruising concept, which means that there are no set times or seating arrangements for meals, nor is formal attire required. Norwegian Cruise Line has a sister company, NCL America. NCL itself is jointly owned by Star Cruises (a public company partially owned by the Genting Group based in Malaysia) and Apollo Management, with both companies owning 50% of NCL. Norwegian Cruise Line controls approximately 8% of the total worldwide share of the cruise market.
The cruise line was founded as Norwegian Caribbean Line in 1966 by Knut Kloster and Ted Arison, with just one 830-ton cruise ship/car ferry offering low-cost Caribbean cruises. Arison soon left to form Carnival Cruise Lines, while Kloster acquired additional ships for Caribbean service. NCL pioneered many firsts in the cruise industry like: the first Out Island Cruise, the first combined air-sea program (marketed as "Cloud 9 Cruises") which combined low cost air fares with the cruise, first

Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, 1st Baronet, KCVO (10 May 1848 – 2 October 1931) was a Scotsman of Ulster-Scots parentage who was a self-made man, merchant, and yachtsman. He created the Lipton tea brand and was the most persistent challenger in the history of the America's Cup.
Lipton was born in Glasgow on 10 May 1848. His parents, Thomas Lipton senior and Frances Lipton (née Johnstone), were Ulster-Scots, who came from County Fermanagh. The Liptons had been smallholders in Fermanagh for generations, but by the late 1840s, Thomas Lipton's parents had decided to leave Ireland and move to Scotland in search of a better living for themselves and their young family. By 1847, the Liptons had settled in Glasgow. Lipton's father would hold a number of occupations throughout the 1840s and 1850s, including working as a labourer and as a printer.
Although Thomas Lipton would later state that he was born at his family's home in Crown Street in the Gorbals in 1850, there is no record of this in the parish register for that period. However, in the 1851 census, the family were recorded as living in the north of Glasgow, with young Thomas being listed as being aged 3 years old. It would appear

Thomas Tew (died 1695), also known as the Rhode Island Pirate, was a 17th century English privateer-turned-pirate. Although he embarked on only two major piratical voyages, and met a bloody death on the latter journey, Tew pioneered the route which became known as the Pirate Round. Many other famous pirates, including Henry Every and William Kidd, would follow in Tew’s path. Much of what is known about Tew is derived from Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, which is a mixture of fact and fiction. When reading about Thomas Tew it is important to be able to distinguish between truth and story.
Captain Johnson said "Tew, in Point of Gallantry, was inferior to none."
It is frequently written that Tew had family in Rhode Island dating back to 1640, but it is not known where he was actually born. He may have been born in New England. One theory is that he was born in Maidford, Northamptonshire, England before immigrating to the colonies as a child with his family, although there is only a little circumstantial evidence for this. He lived at one time in Newport, Rhode Island. Tew is reported as being married with two daughters. According to one source his wife and

The Carabinieri (formally Arma dei carabinieri, "arm of carabineers" or "corps of carabiniers"; Italian pronunciation: [ˌkäˑɾäbiˈnjɛːɾi]) is the national military police of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations. It was originally founded as the police force of the Kingdom of Sardinia. During the process of Italian unification, it was appointed the "First Force" of the new national military organization. Although the Carabinieri assisted in the suppression of opposition during the rule of Benito Mussolini, they were also responsible for his downfall and many units were disbanded by Nazi Germany, which resulted in large numbers of Carabinieri joining the Italian resistance movement. Since 2001, it has been one of the four Italian Armed Forces.
The corps was created by King Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy with the aim of providing the Kingdom of Sardinia with a police corps. Previously, police duties were managed by the Dragoni di Sardegna corps, created in 1726 and composed of volunteers. After French soldiers had occupied Turin at the end of the 18th century and later abandoned it to the Kingdom of Piedmont, the corps of Royal Carabinieri was instituted under the Royal

Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly referred to as HM Government (HMG) or the British Government, is the central government of the United Kingdom.
The Government is led by the Prime Minister, who selects all the remaining Ministers. The Prime Minister and the other most senior Ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, known as the Cabinet. The Government Ministers are all members of Parliament, and are accountable to it. The Government is dependent on Parliament to make primary legislation, which means that in practice a government must seek re-election at least every five years. The monarch selects the Prime Minister as the leader of the party most likely to command a majority in Parliament.
Under the British constitution, executive authority lies with the monarch, although this authority is exercised only by, or on the advice of, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. The Cabinet members advise the monarch as members of the Privy Council. They also exercise power directly as leaders of the Government Departments.
The current Prime Minister is David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, who was appointed

The Maritime Museum of San Diego, established in 1948, preserves one of the largest collections of historic sea vessels in the United States. Located in the San Diego Bay, the centerpiece of the museum's collection is the Star of India, an 1863 iron bark. The museum maintains the MacMullen Library and Research Archives aboard the 1898 ferryboat Berkeley. The museum also publishes the quarterly peer-reviewed journal Mains'l Haul: A Journal of Pacific Maritime History.
The Maritime Museum is located on the west side of North Harbor Drive, between the ends of Ash Street and Grape Street, south of San Diego International Airport.
The Maritime Museum of San Diego is building a full-sized, fully functional, and historically accurate replica of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo’s flagship, San Salvador. San Salvador will be constructed in full public view (village opening June 24, 2011) at Spanish Landing in San Diego California, giving people the opportunity to watch from a close perspective as an example of the first modern industrial activity in the Americas comes to life in full public view. After construction, San Salvador will remain on exhibit as part of the Museum's fleet of historic and

The Great Western Steam Ship Company operated the first regular transatlantic steamer service from 1838 until 1846. Related to the Great Western Railway, the company's directors expected their new enterprise to achieve the position that was ultimately secured by the Cunard Line. The firm's first ship, the Great Western was capable of record Blue Riband crossings as late as 1843 and was the model for Cunard's Britannia and her three sisters. The company's second steamer, the Great Britain was an outstanding technical achievement of the age. Unfortunately, the company collapsed because it failed to secure a mail contract and the Great Britain appeared to be a total loss after running aground. The company may have had a more successful outcome had it built sister ships for the Great Western instead of investing in the too advanced Great Britain.
By the 1830s, Liverpool was overtaking Bristol as a transatlantic port. The Great Western Railway was formed in 1833 to build a Bristol-London line and appointed Isambard Kingdom Brunel as chief engineer. The issue of the line's length was discussed at a 1835 director's meeting when supposedly Brunel joked that the line could be made longer by

Joe Lewis (born February 5, 1937 in East London) is an English businessman who currently lives in Albany, Bahamas.
Lewis' total wealth is estimated at $3.8 billion, and he is listed as the 290th richest person of Forbes’ List of billionaires (2012). Forbes reports Lewis is the seventh wealthiest person in Britain.
Born above a public house in Roman Road, Bow, London, Lewis left school at 15 to help run his father's West End of London catering business Tavistock Banqueting, starting out as a waiter. When he took the reins, he quickly expanded it by selling luxury goods to American tourists, and also owned West End nightclub the Hanover Grand, where he gave Robert Earl his first job. He later sold the business in 1979 to make his initial wealth.
After selling the family business in the late 1970s, Lewis moved into currency trading in the 1980s and 1990s, resulting in his move to the Bahamas where he is now a tax exile. In September 1992, Lewis teamed up with George Soros to bet on the pound crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. The event, which was dubbed Black Wednesday, made Lewis very wealthy, and some say he made more than Soros.
Lewis is the main investor in

The Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) is a yacht club founded in 1939 and is the current holder of the America's Cup won by its racing team BMW Oracle Racing.
In 1939 the first members built a clubhouse on a barge in the San Francisco Marina. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake severely damaged the club, members pulled together and rebuilt it.
GGYC is a popular cruise and regatta venue on the San Francisco waterfront. The Club is located on the jetty directly east of the St. Francis Yacht Club and north of the Marina Green, at the end of Yacht Road in San Francisco. The most well-known of current members is Oracle Corporation founder Larry Ellison.
The Club entered the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup, the America's Cup challenger selection series, represented by the BMW Oracle Racing team. BMW Oracle Racing were eliminated in the semi-finals. They challenged for the America's Cup in 2010 represented by the BMW Oracle Racing team and won a Deed of Gift match 2-0 against the Alinghi team representing Société Nautique de Genève becoming the first American yacht club to hold the cup since 1995.
America's Cup Management announced on July 5, 2007 that the protocol for the 33rd America's Cup had

Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard (August 22, 1802 in Windsor, Vermont, – September 14, 1886 in Chicago, Illinois) was an American fur trader, insurance underwriter and land speculator. Hubbard first arrived in Chicago on October 1, 1818 as a voyageur. He went on to build Chicago's first stockyard and help foment a land boom for Chicago in the East.
Hubbard was born in Windsor, Vermont, to Elizur Hubbard and Abigail Sage Hubbard. When his father, a lawyer, lost his money around 1812 in speculative ventures, he took the family north and settled in Montreal. In 1818, Hubbard was indentured to John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company for five years at $120 per year.
Hubbard first arrived in Chicago in 1818 as a member of a brigade led by Antoine Deschamps. Hubbard carried an introduction to John Kinzie, a trader in Chicago, whose son, Morris, had befriended Hubbard. Although Hubbard eventually became a major booster of Chicago and one of its leading citizens, he wouldn't make his permanent home in the city until 1834.
On several trips throughout Illinois, he became the adopted son of Chief Waba of the Kickapoo and married Watseka, niece of Chief Tamin of the Kankakee. After he walked for 75

John Evans (died c. 1723) was a Welsh pirate who had a short but successful career in the Caribbean.
Evans was the master of a sloop operating from the island of Nevis until he lost his employment there. For a while he found employment as a mate of ships sailing from Jamaica. This was a time when there was a surplus of seamen, so that wages were low and berths scarce, and towards the end of September 1722 Evans and a few friends decided to try their luck at pirating. They started by leaving Port Royal in Jamica in a rowing boat and going ashore on the north side of the island to raid some houses.
A few days later they found a small sloop at anchor and commandeered her, giving her the name Scowerer. They sailed to Hispaniola, where they captured a Spanish sloop which proved a rich prize: when shared out the booty came to 150 pounds per man. They went on to take a number of other ships, adding to their own crew by inducing many of their crews to join them. A Dutch sloop which they captured was commandeered. They then headed for the Grand Caymans to careen.
Here an incident put an end to Evans' career as a pirate. The captain had trouble with the boatswain of his ship, and several

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health. With an annual budget of about US$6.87 billion (fiscal year 2010), the NSF funds approximately 20% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States' colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.
The NSF's director, deputy director, and the 24 members of the National Science Board (NSB) are appointed by the President of the United States, and confirmed by the United States Senate. The director and deputy director are responsible for administration, planning, budgeting and day-to-day operations of the foundation, while the NSB meets six times a year to establish its overall policies.
Although many other federal research agencies operate their own laboratories, notable examples being the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NSF does not.

Reynolds Group Holdings is an American packaging company with its roots in the Reynolds Metals Company, which was the second largest aluminum company in the United States, and the third largest in the world. The company became well known for the consumer product Reynolds Wrap as well as being a leader in developing and promoting new uses for aluminum; its RV Aluminaut submarine was operated by Reynolds Marine Services. Headquartered for most of its existence in Richmond, Virginia, it was acquired by Alcoa in June 2000. Alcoa's consumer unit was acquired by Graeme Hart, a New Zealand businessman in 2008 and named Reynolds Packaging Group. Hart's other packaging holding were merged into Reynolds to create the present Reynolds Group Holdings.
The Reynolds Metals Company was founded in 1919 as the U.S. Foil Company in Louisville, Kentucky by Richard S. Reynolds, Sr., a nephew of tobacco king R. J. Reynolds. Initially, the new company supplied lead and tin foil wrappers to cigarette and candy companies. In 1924, the U.S. Foil purchased the manufacturer of Eskimo Pies, which were wrapped in foil. In 1928, Reynolds purchased Robertshaw Thermostat, Fulton Sylphon, and part of Beechnut

Sir Thomas Cavendish (19 September 1560 – May 1592) was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavigating the globe. While members of Magellan's, Loaisa's, Drake's, and Loyola's expeditions had preceded Cavendish in circumnavigating the globe, it had not been their intent at the outset. His first trip and successful circumnavigation, made him rich from captured Spanish gold, silk and treasure from the Pacific and the Philippines. His richest prize was the captured 600 ton sailing ship the Manila Galleon Santa Ana (also called Santa Anna). He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England after his return. He later set out for a second raiding and circumnavigation trip, but was not as fortunate and died at sea at the age of 32.
Cavendish was born in 1560 at Trimley St. Martin near Ipswich, Suffolk, England. His father was William Cavendish; he was a descendant of Roger Cavendish, brother to Sir John Cavendish from whom the Dukes of Devonshire and the Dukes of Newcastle derive their family name of Cavendish.
When

Peter B. Lewis (born November 11, 1933) is the Cleveland, Ohio-area based chairman of Progressive Insurance Companies. Lewis currently resides in Coconut Grove, Florida.
Lewis was raised in a Jewish family in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. He attended Cleveland Heights High School and graduated from Princeton University in 1955.
In 1965 Lewis became Progressive's chief executive officer after joining as an underwriting trainee in 1955. (His father, Joe Lewis, who died in 1955, co-founded Progressive with Jack Green in 1937.) In the 1960s Progressive had 100 employees and $6 million in revenues. As of 2005, Progressive had grown to 27,000 employees with sales of $13.4 billion and become the third largest auto insurance company in the United States. In 2000 Lewis retired as CEO of Progressive, though he remains as Chairman of the Board.
With an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion dollars, Lewis frequently donates money to charities and political groups. He is a patron of the arts and supports many artistic pursuits. Lewis's personal and corporate contemporary art collection is well known—the corporate collection is displayed at Progressive Insurance offices. Lewis has made donations

Abraham Blauvelt (died 1663?) was a Dutch privateer and explorer mapping much of Central America in the 1630s, after whom both the Bluefield River and the neighboring town of Bluefields, Nicaragua were named.
One of the last of the Dutch corsairs of the mid 17th century, Abraham Blauvelt was first recorded exploring the coasts of present day Honduras and Nicaragua in service of the Dutch West India Company. He later traveled to England in an effort to gain support to establish a colony in Nicaragua near the city where Bluefields, Nicaragua presently stands. Around 1640 Blauvelt became a privateer serving the Swedish East India Company and in 1644 he commanded his own ship successfully raiding Spanish shipping from a base in southwest Jamaica, today known as Bluefields Bay, and selling the cargo and prizes to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (New York). After peace between Spain and the Netherlands was reached with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Blauvelt, unable to stay in New Amsterdam, instead sailed to Newport, Rhode Island in early 1649 to sell his remaining cargo. However the colonial governor seized one of Blauvelt's prizes and with his crew arguing over

Alexander Hamilton (before 1688 – after 1733) was a Scottish sea captain, privateer and merchant.
In his early years he travelled widely through Europe, the Barbary coast, the West Indies, India and South-east Asia. On his arrival in Bombay in 1688 he was briefly pressed into the employ of the English East India Company in a local war, and then set up as a private country trader, operating from Surat. He was appointed commander of the Bombay Marine in June 1717, in which post he suppressed piracy.
The main extant source of information on Hamilton is his own book, A New Account of the East Indies (1727). The term then covered a much wider geographic area than it does today - 'most of the countries and islands of commerce and navigation, between the Cape of Good Hope and the island of Japan.' Illustrated with lively anecdotes, it provides a valuable insight into life in early modern Asia.

Groupe Caisse d'Epargne is a French semi-cooperative banking group, founded in 1818, with around 4700 branches in the country. The group is active in retail and private banking, as well as holding a significant stake in the publicly traded investment bank Natixis.
The group's most notable brand is the Caisse d'Epargne network of mutual savings banks. Along with La Banque Postale and Crédit Mutuel, the bank shared the rights to offer the popular Livret A savings accounts, backed by the French government until January 1, 2009.
In addition, the group is also the owner of the mortgage bank Crédit Foncier, the corporate and private bank Banque Palatine and Financière Océor, a commercial, private asset management and specialist finance bank serving France's overseas departments.
In 2006 Groupe Caisse d'Epargne merged its investment bank IXIS Corporate and Investment Bank with Groupe Banque Populaire's Natexis, creating Natixis, a publicly traded investment bank in which Caisse d'Epargne and Groupe Banque Populaire currently hold an equal stake of 35.25%. Groupe Caisse d'Epargne has also since merged its private wealth management bank La Compagnie 1818 into the Natixis group.
The group is

Hippolyte de Bouchard, or Hipólito de Bouchard (January 15, 1780, or 1783– January 4, 1837), was a French and Argentine sailor and corsair who fought for Argentina, Chile, and Peru. During his first campaign as an Argentine corsair he attacked the Spanish colonies of Chile and Peru, under the command of the Argentine-Irish Admiral William Brown. He was the first Argentine to circumnavigate the world. During his voyage around the world he blockaded the port of Manila. In Hawaii, he recovered an Argentine privateer which had been seized by mutineers. He also met the local ruler, King Kamehameha I. His forces occupied Monterey, California, then a Spanish colony, raising the Argentine flag there and briefly claiming a small portion of the future State of California for Argentina. After raiding Monterey, he plundered Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California. Toward the end of the voyage Bouchard raided the Spanish ports in Central America. His second homeland remembers him as a hero and patriot; several places are named in his honour.
Bouchard was born in Saint-Tropez in 1780 or 1783. The son of André Louis Bouchard and Thérèse Brunet was baptized as André Paul but eventually

The Imperial German Navy refers to the "Imperial Navy" (German: Kaiserliche Marine) – the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded the Navy, and enlarged its mission. The key leader was Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930), who greatly expanded the size and quality of the Navy, while adopting the sea power theories of American strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. The result was a naval arms race with Britain as the German navy grew to become one of the greatest maritime forces in the world, second only to the Royal Navy. The German surface navy proved ineffective during World War I; its only major engagement, the Battle of Jutland, was indecisive. However, the submarine fleet was greatly expanded and posed a major threat to the British supply system. The Imperial Navy was largely destroyed at Scapa Flow in 1919 by its own officers, after Germany's defeat.
All ships of the Imperial Navy were designated SMS, for Seiner Majestät Schiff (His Majesty's Ship).
The Imperial

Lars Christensen (6 April 1884 – 10 December 1965) was a Norwegian shipowner and whaling magnate with a keen interest in the exploration of Antarctica.
Lars Christensen was born in Sandar. Born into a wealthy family, Christensen inherited his whaling fleet from his father, Christen Christensen. He started his career as a ship owner in 1906. He ventured into the whaling industry in 1909, and directed several companies, including Framnæs Mekaniske Værksted, AS Thor Dahl, AS Odd, AS Ørnen, AS Thorsholm and Bryde og Dahls Hvalfangstselskap.
Endurance, the ship that became famous after Sir Ernest Shackleton's failed Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914, was originally built for Christensen, who intended to use her for polar cruises for tourists to hunt polar bears. When this did not happen, Christensen sold the ship to Shackleton.
Christensen had a deep interest in Antarctica and its animal life. He was particularly interested in making geographical discoveries, and gave his captains wide latitude to do so. He financed several expeditions specifically devoted to the exploration of the Antarctic continent and its waters, and participated in some of these himself, even bringing his

Michel de Grammont (c. 1645 - 1686?) was a French pirate. He was born in Paris, France and was lost at sea, north-east Caribbean, April 1686. His pirate career was from c.1670 - 1686. His flagship was the Hardi.
Chevalier de Grammont was a nobleman who came into disfavour after killing his sister's suitor in a duel. Forced to leave France he went to Hispaniola where he was given a French ship and served as a privateer. His first success was the capture of a Dutch convoy, valued at about 400,000 livres (US$4 million). On his next voyage he ran on a reef and sank. Grammont moved to Tortuga where he bought and outfitted a new ship which he used to attack Spanish shipping. When war broke out between France and Holland in 1678, he joined a fleet under the command of Comte d'Estrées for an abortive raid on the Dutch island of Curaçao however, the entire fleet of 17 vessels was wrecked on the Las Aves Archipelago.
In June 1678 he was made commander of the six ships and 700 men salvaged from the Las Aves Disaster. De Grammont landed his men in Spanish-held Venezuela and captured Maracaibo then followed the capture and plundering of several smaller towns, penetrating as far inland as

The Spanish Navy (Spanish: Armada Española) is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Armada is responsible for notable achievements in world history such as the discovery of Americas, the first world circumnavigation, and the discovery of a maritime path from the East Asia to America across the Pacific Ocean.
For three centuries the Spanish Navy played a crucial defensive and logistical role within the Spanish Empire. It formed part of a vast trade network that sailed the Pacific from Asia to America and the Atlantic from America to Europe escorting the galleon convoys. The Spanish Navy was the most powerful maritime force in the world in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but the political and economic decline of Habsburg Spain caused it to be eclipsed by the rising Dutch, English, and French navies. Wide-ranging reforms under the new Bourbon dynasty reversed this decline in the 18th century, for much of which Spain possessed the world's third-largest navy and, by combining with the allied Marine royale, rivaled Britain for naval supremacy until Trafalgar.
As of 2010, the Armada has 25,000 personnel, and the

The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) is a regional branch of the University of Minnesota system located in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. As Duluth's public research university, UMD offers 13 bachelor's degrees in 74 majors, graduate programs in 24 different fields, a two-year program at the School of Medicine, a four-year College of Pharmacy program, and a Doctor of Education program.
The chief executive officer of UMD is Chancellor Dr. Lendley C. Black. Black began his tenure on August 1, 2010. The previous chancellor, Kathryn A. Martin, served from 1995-2010.
Although the University of Minnesota Duluth didn’t officially make its appearance until 1947, plans for a strong college in the Duluth area were made in the 1890s. The state legislature planned for a teaching school for women (then referred to as a normal school) and in 1895 they announced the formation of the Duluth Normal School. In 1896, the City of Duluth donated 6 acres (2.4 ha) of land to serve as a foundation for the Duluth Normal School, and the state legislature donated additional funds for the construction costs for the main building, which was built in 1900. In February 1901, a fire caused extensive damage to the

Sir Andrew Barton (c. 1466 – 2 August 1511), Scottish sailor from Leith, served as High Admiral of the Kingdom of Scotland.
Some of Andrew Barton's trading voyages to Flanders ports in the 1490s are recorded in the Ledger of Andrew Halyburton. He was the oldest of three brothers, a younger brother Robert Barton of Over Barnton became Lord High Treasurer of Scotland.
Andrew became notorious in England and Portugal as a 'pirate', though as a seaman who operated under the aegis of a letter of marque on behalf of the Scottish crown, he may be described as a privateer. The letter of marque against Portuguese shipping was originally granted to his father John Barton by James III of Scotland before 1485. John's ships had been attacked by Portuguese vessels when he was trading at Sluis in Flanders.
James IV revived the letters in July 1507. When Andrew Barton, sailing in the Lion tried to take reprisals against Portuguese ships in 1508, he was detained by Dutch authorities at Veere. James IV had to write to Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor, and others to get him released in 1509. Andrew then took a Portuguese ship which carried an English cargo, leading to more difficulties, and James IV

Baltazar de Cordes (16th century–17th century), the brother of Simon de Cordez, was a Dutch corsair who fought against the Spanish during the early 17th Century.
Born in the Netherlands in the mid-16th century, Baltazar de Cordes began sailing for the Netherlands against Spain during the Eighty Years' War. Baltazar possibly arrived in the Pacific during the 1598 Magellano Company expedition attempting to circumnavigate South America. This expedition, under the command of Admiral Jacques Mahu, consisted of five ships. One of the vessels, the Liefde ("Love" or "Charity"), reached Japan in 1600, pilot William Adams among the surviving crew. He succeeded Captain Jurriaan van Bokholt (or Van Boekhout) who died around August 23, 1599 shortly after crossing the Straits of Magellan.
In early 1600, (whether this occurred before or after the capture of Chiloe is unknown), Cordes occupied the Spanish colony of Castro, Chile. In April 1600, with combined Dutch and native forces, Cordez organized the capture of the island of Chiloé off the coast of Patagonia (Chile). However Cordez's forces suffered heavy losses upon the recapture of the city by the Spanish, executing all but 23 Dutch and over

The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) (French: Garde côtière canadienne - GCC) is the coast guard of Canada.
The Canadian Coast Guard is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario and is a Special Operating Agency within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
"Canadian Coast Guard services support government priorities and economic prosperity and contribute to the safety, accessibility and security of Canadian waters."
CCG’s mandate is stated in the Oceans Act and the Canada Shipping Act.
The Oceans Act gives the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans responsibility for providing:
The Canada Shipping Act gives the Minister powers, responsibilities and obligations concerning:
Unlike some other nation's coast guards, the CCG is a civilian organisation with no military or law enforcement responsibilities. Military operations in Canada's maritime environment are the responsibility of the Royal Canadian Navy. Enforcement of Canada's maritime-related federal statutes may be carried out by peace officers serving with various federal, provincial or even municipal law enforcement agencies.
Although CCG personnel are neither military nor peace officers, they may operate CCG vessels in support of military

David Mayer de Rothschild (born 1978) is a British adventurer, ecologist, and environmentalist and head of Adventure Ecology, an expedition group raising awareness about climate change. He is a member of the Rothschild family, the youngest of three children of Victoria Lou Schott (born 1949) and Sir Evelyn de Rothschild (b. 1931) of the Rothschild banking family of England. His middle name "Mayer" is taken from the name of the founder of the Rothschild family banking empire, Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
The youngest heir to his family’s banking fortune, de Rothschild was born in 1978 in London, England. His mother, Victoria Lou Schott, is American, daughter of Marcia Lou (Whitney) and Lewis M. Schott. He is the younger brother of Anthony de Rothschild and Jessica de Rothschild. As a teenager, de Rothschild was a top-ranked horse jumper on Britain’s junior event team. He later gave up the sport to pursue his education, stating in an interview with The New Yorker “I realized there was more to life than spending hours and hours and hours on a horse.” After leaving Harrow School in 1996 he attended Oxford Brookes receiving a 2:1 B.Sc (Hons) in Political Science and Information Systems. In

Dennis R. Washington (born 1934) is a Montana-based industrialist and philanthropist who owns, or co-owns controlling interest in, a large consortium of privately held companies collectively known as the Washington Companies and, in Canada, another collection of companies known as the Seaspan Marine Corporation. With an estimated current net worth of around $4.2 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 58th-richest person in America.
Born in Spokane, Dennis Washington grew up in Spokane, Bremerton, Washington, and Missoula, Montana. Following graduation from high school, he worked in construction in Alaska and Montana. He began his business career at age 30 in 1964, with a $30,000 loan and a single bulldozer. He created Washington Construction, which worked primarily on highway contracts and by 1969 was the largest contractor in Montana.
In the 1970s he moved into mining and dam construction. In 1986 he acquired a copper and molybdenum mine at Butte, Montana. He successfully reopened the mine and it became a very profitable operation. This success helped him diversify into railroads, marine services, coastal shipping, aviation and real estate. In 1996 Washington Construction acquired

The Honourable Company of Master Mariners is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Company was formed in 1926; it was made a Livery Company by the City of London in 1932, making it the first new Livery Company to be formed in over a century. While the other Livery Companies are entitled to the style Worshipful, the Master Mariners are styled Honourable, King George V having granted them that honour in 1928.
The Company aids nautical schools and promotes nautical research. It ranks seventy-eighth in the order of precedence for Livery Companies. Its motto is Loyalty and Service.
The Honourable Company of Master Mariners has a headquarters ship, HQS Wellington, moored on the Thames at Victoria Embankment.

John Ward or Birdy (c. 1553 – 1622), also known as Jack Ward and under his Muslim name Yusuf Reis, was a notorious English pirate around the turn of the 17th century who later became a Barbary Corsair operating out of Tunis during the early 17th century.
Little is known about Ward's early life. What little is known comes from a pamphlet purportedly written by someone who sailed with him during his pirate days. That said, Ward seems to have been born about 1553 probably in Faversham, Kent, in southeast England. Like many born in coastal areas, he spent his youth and early adult years working in the fisheries. Then, after the failed invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588, he found work as a privateer, plundering Spanish ships with a license from Queen Elizabeth I of England. When James I of England assumed the throne in 1603, he ended the war with Spain and in effect put the privateers out of business. However, many of them refused to give up their livelihood and simply continued to plunder. Those who did were considered pirates because they no longer had valid licenses – called letters of marque – issued by the state. Ward appears not to have turned immediately to piracy

The Lake Champlain Transportation Company (LCTC or just LCT) provides car and passenger ferry service at four points on Lake Champlain in the United States. From 1976 to 2003, it was owned by Burlington, Vermont, businessman Raymond C. Pecor, Jr. who is Chairman of the company's board. In 2003, he sold the company to his son, Raymond Pecor III.
Lake Champlain is the sixth-largest lake in the United States, reaching a maximum width of 12 miles (19 km) and depths of more than 300 feet (91 m). As such, there is no bridging of the "broad lake" north of Crown Point, New York, and south of the Rouses Point-Alburg-Swanton crossing near the Canada border, though bridging of the lake near Plattsburgh has been proposed. The ferry service allows convenient transport across the lake between New York and Vermont. Approximately one million passengers cross the lake by ferry each year.
Service was originally provided at three points, listed from south to north:
Most runs employs at least two double-ended diesel ferries, making the crossings in opposite directions. All ferries are capable of carrying large trucks as well as cars, bicycles, and foot passengers and are of a roll-on, roll-off design

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), pronounced /ˈno(ʊ).ə/, like "Noah", is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere. NOAA warns of dangerous weather, charts seas and skies, guides the use and protection of ocean and coastal resources, and conducts research to improve understanding and stewardship of the environment. In addition to its civilian employees, NOAA research and operations are supported by 300 uniformed service members who make up the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps. The current Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere at the Department of Commerce and the agency's administrator is Jane Lubchenco, who was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009.
NOAA's strategic vision is "an informed society that uses a comprehensive understanding of the role of the oceans, coasts, and atmosphere in the global ecosystem to make the best social and economic decisions".
The agency's mission is "to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment and conserve and manage coastal and marine resources to meet our

The Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) is a non-profit research and educational corporation based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. PVS was established to research and perpetuate traditional Polynesian voyaging methods. Using replicas of traditional double-hulled canoes, PVS undertakes voyages throughout Polynesia navigating without modern instruments.
The society was founded in 1973 by nautical anthropologist Ben Finney, Hawaiian artist Herb Kawainui Kane, and sailor Charles Tommy Holmes. The three wanted to show that ancient Polynesians could have purposely settled the Polynesian Triangle using non-instrument navigation. The first PVS project was to build a replica of a double-hulled voyaging canoe.
On March 8, 1975, the first voyaging canoe to be built in the Hawaiian Islands in over 600 years was launched with captain Kawika Kapahulehua and crew. Named the Hōkūleʻa, it left Hawaiʻi on May 1, 1976 for Tahiti in an attempt to retrace the ancient voyaging route. Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, using no instruments, successfully navigated the canoe to Tahiti, arriving there on June 3, 1976.
After an attempted voyage to Tahiti in 1978 was aborted when the Hokuleʻa capsized near Lānaʻi and

Captain Samuel Burgess was a member of Captain William Kidd's crew in 1690 when the Blessed William was seized.
In 1693, Edward Coates became captain and the former Captain Burgess left the ship and went to New York. He arrived in April, bought a house and took on a job with Frederick Phillips, New York's wealthiest merchant. Over the next few years Burgess made many profitable voyages to Madagascar selling supplies and guns to pirates in exchange for gold and slaves.
Around September 1699, Burgess was in command of the Margaret. Near Saint Mary's Island he ran into a British fleet and was offered a pardon for any piratical activities. Several of Burgess' crew accepted and bought passage home with the fleet. Burgess sailed to Cape Town, South Africa, by December he reached his destination. Captain Lowth of the East India Company, seized Burgess' ship and took it to Bombay. Lowth also took its treasure and slaves. The owners of the Margaret brought suit against the East India Company and Burgess was taken to London in 1701 and accused of piracy. With Captain Robert Culliford's testimony, Burgess was convicted. Eventually he secured a pardon for his crimes and signed aboard a

Stede Bonnet (c. 1688 – 10 December 1718) was an early 18th-century Barbadian pirate, sometimes called "The Gentleman Pirate" because he was a moderately wealthy landowner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. In 1709, he married Mary Allamby, and engaged in some level of militia service. Because of marital problems, and despite his lack of sailing experience, Bonnet decided to turn to piracy in the summer of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, named it Revenge, and traveled with his paid crew along the Eastern Seaboard of what is now the United States, capturing other vessels and burning other Barbadian ships.
Bonnet set sail for Nassau, Bahamas, but he was seriously wounded en route during an encounter with a Spanish warship. After arriving in Nassau, Bonnet met Edward Teach, the infamous pirate Blackbeard. Incapable of leading his crew, Bonnet temporarily ceded his ship's command to Blackbeard. Before separating in December 1717, Blackbeard and Bonnet plundered and captured merchant ships along the East Coast. After Bonnet failed to capture the

Uluj Ali (Turkish: Uluç Ali Reis, later Uluç Ali Paşa and finally Kılıç Ali Paşa; born Giovanni Dionigi Galeni; 1519 - 21 June 1587) was an Italian by birth who was captured as a slave and later converted to Islam, became a pirate, and later became an Ottoman admiral (Reis), king of Algiers, and Grand Admiral (Kapudan Pasha) of the Ottoman Fleet in the 16th century.
He was also known by several other names in the Christian countries of the Mediterranean, and in the literature also appears under various names. He was often, especially in Italy, referred to as Occhiali, and Miguel de Cervantes called him Uchali in chapter XXXIX of his Don Quixote de la Mancha. Elsewhere he was simply called Ali Pasha. John Wolf, in his The Barbary Coast, refers to him as Euldj Ali.
Uluj Ali was born as Giovanni Dionigi Galeni, the son of seaman Birno Galeni and his wife Pippa de Cicco, in the village of Le Castella (near modern Isola Capo Rizzuto) in Calabria, Southern Italy. His father wanted him to receive a religious education, but on 29 April 1536, Giovanni was captured by Ali Ahmed, one of the corsair captains of Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha, and was forced to serve as a galley slave. After

Vela International Marine Limited (Arabic: فيلا‎) is a Saudi Aramco-owned company headquartered on the 7th floor of City Tower 2 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Vela, established in 1984, currently owns 29 oil tankers most of which are very large crude carriers (VLCCs). Vela International Marine's ship the MV Sirius Star was hijacked by Somali pirates on 15 November 2008 and released 9 January 2009 after a $3 million ransom was paid.
The current fleet consists of:
Vela International Marine Limited is ranked the sixth largest VLCC owner in the world:

Captain William Fly (died July 12, 1726) was an English pirate who raided New England shipping until he was captured by the crew of a seized ship. He was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts.
William Fly's career as a pirate began in April 1726 when he signed on to sail with Captain John Green to West Africa on the Elizabeth. Green and Fly began to clash until one night William led a mutiny that resulted in Capt. Green being tossed overboard; Fly then took command of the Elizabeth. Having captured the ship, the mutineers sewed a Jolly Roger flag, renamed the ship Fames' Revenge, elected William Fly as captain, and sailed to the coast of North Carolina and north toward New England. They captured five ships in about two months before being captured themselves. Following his capture, Cotton Mather tried, and failed, to get Fly to publicly repent. William Fly and his crew were hanged at Boston Harbor on July 12, 1726.
Reportedly, Fly approached the hanging with complete disdain and even reproached the hangman for doing a poor job, re-tying the noose and placing it about his neck with his own two hands. His last words were, roughly, a warning to captains to treat their sailors well and pay

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